Category Archives: House of Representatives

Health concerns plague ageing Congress members returning to Capitol Hill

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Republicans Mitch McConnell and Steve Scalise join others in increased scrutiny over recent health issues

Lawmakers are returning to Capitol Hill as they race to reach a short-term funding deal by the end of the month to keep federal agencies open and avert a government shutdown. But worries about the health of two top Republicans loom over the high-stakes talks as politicians’ age has become a growing concern.

Speaking to reporters last week in Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Senate Republican leader, appeared to freeze for 30 seconds after calling the possibility of a shutdown “a pretty big mess”. The incident raised questions about his health and mirrored an earlier incident where he suddenly paused for several seconds while speaking to reporters at the US Capitol.

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Donald Trump expects indictment ‘any day now’ in 2020 election subversion case – as it happened

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The blog is now closed, but you can read more about Donald Trump’s swirling legal peril here.

A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Hunter Biden reported for an interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee, as the GOP toys with the idea of starting impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden when they return from their August recess.

Here’s what else has happened today:

Trump is in a historically good position to win the Republican presidential primary, CNN concludes.

At a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called for stopping aid to Ukraine until the government helps prove alleged corruption by the Biden family.

Ron DeSantis’s once-promising presidential campaign is suffering from both Republican defections and his own missteps.

Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.

No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.

What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).

The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.

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Republican congressman rebuked by senators for swearing at young pages

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Bipartisan disapproval for Derrick Van Orden, who yelled and cursed at school-age Senate helpers during late-night Capitol tour

A freshman Republican congressman from Wisconsin yelled and cursed at high school-aged Senate pages during a late-night tour of the Capitol this week, eliciting a bipartisan rebuke from Senate leaders.

Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin’s third district, used a profanity to describe the young pages as lazy and another to order them off the floor of the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday night, according to PunchBowl News. The pages were lying down to take photos, according to the publication.

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UFO hearing key takeaways: cover-up claims and Pentagon denials

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Witness made several startling allegations about the US government and UFOs, but doubts lingered over key testimony

In scenes that felt reminiscent of a science-fiction movie, the US Congress held a public hearing on claims the government is covering up its knowledge of UFOs.

Unsurprisingly, the hearing generated huge interest in the US and around the world as it heard from three key witnesses, including David Grusch, a whistleblower former intelligence official who in June claimed the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.

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Supreme court ethics: Senate committee approves new rules as fresh Clarence Thomas claims emerge – as it happened

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Rules passed along party lines; conservative nonprofits reportedly orchestrated a $1.8m PR campaign to defend supreme court justice
• This blog is now closed. To read more about Donald Trump click here

Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.

Real estate transactions

Just about every week now, we learn something new and deeply troubling about the justices serving on the supreme court, the highest court in the land in the United States, and their conduct outside the courtroom.

Let me tell you, if I or any member of the Senate failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway or if we used our government staff to help sell books we wrote, we’d be in big trouble.

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Progressive Democrats protest Israeli president’s address to US Congress

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib say they intend to boycott address due to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians

Democratic divisions over Israel were on stark display on Tuesday, as lawmakers prepared to welcome Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, the president of Israel, for an address to a joint session of Congress.

Several progressive House members, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, intend to boycott Herzog’s speech on Wednesday to protest against the treatment of Palestinians under the government of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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House Republicans pass defense bill, setting up clash on abortion policy

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Senate must now consider bill to fund US military containing amendments on abortion, transgender healthcare and diversity

The Republican-led House of Representatives on Friday approved a huge defense bill that includes amendments overturning the Pentagon’s policies on covering abortion services for the military, healthcare costs for transgender service members and diversity initiatives – setting up a historic clash with Democrats and the Biden administration that could imperil spending on the armed forces.

The amendments, pushed by the GOP’s right flank with the support of the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, represent the latest instance of conservative lawmakers using their influence in Congress’s lower chamber to attempt to change Joe Biden’s policies on a range of issues that chiefly animate the Republican base.

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House Republicans grill FBI director as Democrats deride attacks on agency

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Hearing comes as Republicans have accused FBI and DoJ of political bias in investigations of Trump and Biden’s son

House Republicans grilled the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, at a frequently contentious committee hearing on Wednesday. While Republicans accused the FBI of political bias in its handling of investigations into Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, Democrats derided the attacks on the bureau as a smokescreen driven by conspiracy theories.

The Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, kicked off the hearing with a litany of complaints about the FBI’s alleged targeting of rightwing leaders and activists, lamenting the supposed “double standard that exists now in our justice system”. Jordan suggested that the allegedly misguided leadership of Wray, a Trump appointee, could jeopardize government funding for the FBI’s planned new headquarters.

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US House unanimously calls on Russia to release journalist Evan Gershkovich

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Gershkovich was arrested in March on espionage charges, which both he and his employer, the Wall Street Journal, deny

The US House of Representatives voted unanimously on Tuesday for a resolution calling for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia for three months.

The vote was 422-0 in favor of the nonbinding measure.

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McCarthy insists Republican support for debt deal ‘easy’ despite vocal opposition

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House speaker says he isn’t worried the agreement will fail as prominent rightwinger Chip Roy calls it a ‘turd sandwich’

The Republican speaker of the US House, Kevin McCarthy, insisted on Tuesday that supporting the debt ceiling deal would be “easy” for his party and it was likely to pass through Congress despite one prominent rightwinger’s verdict that the proposed agreement is a “turd sandwich”.

Amid loud denunciations from the Republican right and also from closer to the centre, McCarthy said he was not worried the agreement would fail, or that it would threaten his hold on the speaker’s gavel.

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US political leaders push for lawmakers’ support on debt ceiling deal

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Some members of Congress question if they received enough concessions in Biden and McCarthy’s agreement

US political leaders appeared bullish on Monday that they can sell a bipartisan compromise debt ceiling deal to enough mainstream lawmakers – overcoming boisterous criticism from left and right – urgently enough to avert a first-ever national default on the $31.4tn the US owes creditors.

Despite a lot of diplomacy and even arm-twisting still to come on Capitol Hill in the next few days, Joe Biden left the White House to head to Delaware on Monday afternoon smiling and teasing reporters as he took questions, while the first lady, Jill Biden, waited on the lawn.

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Biden hails debt ceiling deal and urges lawmakers to pass agreement

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President says deal struck with Kevin McCarthy protects ‘historic economic recovery’ but it needs approval from a divided Congress

Joe Biden has said a bipartisan deal to raise the $31.4tn US debt ceiling and avoid a default is ready to move to Congress and urged lawmakers to pass the agreement he struck with Kevin McCarthy.

“This is a deal that’s good news for ... the American people,” the president said at the White House on Sunday night after a call with McCarthy to put the final touches to a tentative deal struck the previous day. “It takes the threat of catastrophic default off the table, protects our hard-earned and historic economic recovery,” he said.

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Biden ‘optimistic’ of debt ceiling deal as Yellen extends deadline to 5 June

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Lawmakers on call over Memorial Day weekend as treasury secretary revises estimate of when US will run out of money

Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the US will run out of money to pay its bills by 5 June, the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said on Friday as Democratic and Republican negotiators struggled to reach a deal.

Failure to raise the debt celling could trigger a default that could wreak havoc on the economy and global markets. Yellen’s announcement gives negotiators a little more time to come to an agreement.

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Debt ceiling deal within sight as Biden and Republicans continue to negotiate

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House adjourned for holiday weekend, but lawmakers could be recalled to vote on deal if agreement is reached

Joe Biden and Republican lawmakers on Thursday appeared to be nearing a deal to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling, with little time to spare to avoid a potential default that could wreak havoc on the economy and global markets.

The deal under consideration by negotiators would raise the government’s $31.4tn debt ceiling for two years while capping spending on most items, a US official told Reuters. It would also increase funding for discretionary spending on military and veterans while essentially holding non-defense discretionary spending at current year levels, the official said.

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House speaker McCarthy says ‘I see the path’ to debt ceiling deal with Democrats – as it happened

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Republican gives positive remarks to reporters as 11 Democratic senators sign letter to Biden urging him to use 14th amendment to avoid default

Eleven Democratic senators have signed a letter to Joe Biden urging him to consider invoking the 14th amendment to prevent the United States from defaulting if the debt ceiling is not raised.

The letter, which first became public yesterday, was signed by Democrats Tina Smith, Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey, Mazie Hirono, Peter Welch, Richard Blumenthal, Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, John Fetterman and Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

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House Republicans sidestep effort to expel George Santos from Congress

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Members voted along party lines to refer a resolution to remove the lying congressman to the House ethics committee

Republicans successfully sidestepped an effort to force them into a vote to expel George Santos, the New York representative, from Congress, which could have narrowed their already slim four-seat majority.

The House voted along party lines, 221-204, to refer a resolution to expel the congressman to the House ethics committee, with Santos himself joining his Republican colleagues in voting to do so.

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Suspect named in baseball bat attack at Democratic congressman’s office

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Virginia congressman Gerry Connolly condemns ‘devastating and unconscionable’ assault on two staffers

Police in Virginia on Monday named the suspect in an attack in which two staffers at the district office of a Democratic congressman were assaulted with a metal baseball bat and required hospital treatment.

Xuan Kha Tran Pham, 49, was arrested after the attack at Gerry Connolly’s office in Fairfax. Held without bond, Pham faced charges of malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding.

Associated Press contributed to this report

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GOP mega-donor reportedly paid private school tuition for great-nephew of Clarence Thomas – live

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Supreme court justice did not report Crow’s tuition payments on his annual financial disclosures, ProPublica reports

A new investigation by ProPublica revealed that billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow paid the tuition of Mark Martin, a grandnephew of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.

According to ProPublica, Mark Martin, whom Thomas obtained legal custody over when Martin was 6-years old, attended a private boarding school in northern Georgia called Hidden Lakes Academy for about a year.

“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth… he and his wife have supported many young Americans through scholarship and other programs at a variety of schools…

Harlan and Kathy have particularly focused on students who are at risk of falling behind or missing out on opportunities to better themselves… Tuition and other financial assistance is given directly to academic institutions, not to students or to their families. These scholarships and other contributions have always been paid solely from personal funds, sometimes held at and paid through the family business.”

A New York judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit that accused the New York Times of an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records.

Vice president Kamala Harris will meet with Google and Microsoft CEOs today to discuss AI risks.

Iowa lawmakers have passed a Republican-led bill that allows teenagers to work longer hours and take previously banned jobs.

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Kevin McCarthy basks in rare win after Republicans unite to pass debt ceiling plan – live

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For the Guardian, Lyz Lenz looks at the relationship between Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, and what the latter’s ouster from Fox News this week means for the former president’s latest campaign for the White House:

At an 18 February 2017 rally, Donald Trump railed against immigrants and violence. He was unusually focused on Sweden, warning the crowd about recent terrorist attacks in the country: “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” If a terrorist attack in Sweden seemed unbelievable, it’s because it was. There had been no attack by immigrants the night before Trump spoke. The most recent attacks on Sweden, at the time, were a series of bombings between November 2016 and January 2017 that were allegedly connected to the neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance.

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Biden dismisses concerns about his age: ‘It doesn’t register with me’ – as it happened

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Oldest president to seek re-election tackles issue a day after officially kicking off his 2024 bid

Senate Democrats have demanded answers from the supreme court after a series of reports indicating at least two justices have relationships with parties interested in the court’s decisions that they did not disclose.

But the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, said on the floor today that the court continues to have his confidence:

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