The attempt to pry the party away from Trump’s influence fizzled but support in Congress is greater than it may appear
The Republican rebellion failed: Donald Trump won.
“I was disappointed over the last few weeks to see what seemed like the Republican party waking up,” the Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger observed on NBC’s Meet the Press last week, “and then kind of falling asleep again”.
Continue reading...Cheney, the third ranking member of the House Republican leadership, was censured in a vote Saturday by her state’s Republican party
Liz Cheney, the third-highest-ranking Republican leader in the House, was censured by the Wyoming Republican party on Saturday for voting to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.
The overwhelming censure vote was the latest blowback for Cheney for joining nine Republican representatives and all Democrats in the US House in the 13 January impeachment vote.
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The House has just passed the Senate-approved budget resolution, paving the way for the chamber to take up Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal in the coming weeks.
The House voted 219-209 along mostly partly lines to approve the resolution as amended by the Senate. Jared Golden was the only Democrat to vote against the measure.
The rule for S.Con.Res. 5 – Setting forth the congressional budget for the US Gov't for FY 2021 & setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for FY 2022-2030 was adopted by a vote of 219-209.
S.Con.Res. 5 is hereby passed.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, fresh from being stripped of her committee assignments, seemed unrepentant on Friday morning, as she used a press conference to sum up the intertwining of the Republican party and Donald Trump.
“The party is his – it doesn’t belong to anyone else,” Greene told reporters in Washington this morning.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Trump and the GOP Party:
"The party is his. It doesn’t belong to anybody else." pic.twitter.com/XOL8VzRicW
Vote largely along party lines serves as rebuke of congresswoman’s incendiary and racist statements
The US House of Representatives has voted to strip the extremist Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia from the committees she was assigned to, in a stark rebuke of her incendiary and racist statements.
Related: Republicans take no action against Cheney or extremist Greene after vote
Continue reading...House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House of Representatives would vote to remove Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee positions after House Republican leaders declined to proactively discipline her. Pelosi said she was ‘profoundly concerned about House Republican leadership’s acceptance of an extreme conspiracy theorist’
Continue reading...Instead of discreetly returning to private life the ex-president is focused on punishing Republicans he feels betrayed him
Every former American president picks up hobbies after leaving office (books, painting, skinny dipping, boxing). For the early days of Donald Trump’s post-presidency he has picked something a little different: revenge.
It’s early and presidents usually intentionally recede from public view dramatically after leaving office. But Trump appears uninterested in following that practice.
Continue reading...Republicans met to consider fate of two prominent congresswoman in a divided party
House Republicans faced a reckoning on Wednesday as leaders in the US House of Representatives confronted calls to punish two prominent congresswomen who represent clashing visions for a party struggling to chart a path forward since Donald Trump left the White House.
Related: House to vote on removing rightwing extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene from committees – live
Continue reading...Senate minority leader didn’t name Marjorie Taylor Greene, but the remarks were clearly directed at the QAnon supporter
Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the US Senate, has intensified pressure on the extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling the “loony lies and conspiracy theories” that she endorses a “cancer for the Republican party”.
Continue reading...A path forward for the GOP is unclear when the former president still holds power over many of its lawmakers
Donald Trump may have left the White House, but his shadow still looms large in Washington and the Republican party as the Senate prepares for his second impeachment trial.
Continue reading...Abolishing the filibuster could allow Senate Democrats to pass Joe Biden’s agenda, but there are risks
While the US Senate has temporarily averted a showdown over its so-called filibuster rule, the issue appears likely to resurface, as the wafer-thin Democratic majority endeavors to pass Joe Biden’s legislative agenda into law – and Republicans try to stop them. Here’s what you need to know:
Continue reading...Democratic congresswoman said Marjorie Taylor Greene and her staff refused to wear masks and berated her
The Democratic representative Cori Bush said she is moving her office away from that of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene due to safety concerns after Greene and her staff berated her and refused to wear masks.
Continue reading...A visibly angry Nancy Pelosi accused Republican leaders of showing disregard to the victims of school shootings after the QAnon-supporting congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was assigned a seat on the House education committee. Greene has previously suggested the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida was a 'false flag' and was filmed harassing a teenage survivor on Capitol Hill in 2019. 'She has mocked the killing of little children,' Pelosi said. 'What could they be thinking? Or is thinking too strong a word for what they might be doing?'
Continue reading...President, who has already cancelled Keystone XL pipeline, will address nation on the environment
While we’re waiting for a Covid-19 briefing, it’s worth remembering just how many people have gone through a year of pandemic without health insurance: likely at least 28.9 million.
The number of people who lacked health insurance rose through the Trump presidency, and grew by experts millions were added to the ranks of uninsured as the pandemic drove unprecedented job losses. A plurality of Americans rely on private health insurance through an employer.
WASHINGTON (AP) Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Joe Biden plans to reopen the HealthCare.gov insurance markets for a special sign-up opportunity geared to people needing coverage in the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden is expected to sign an executive order Thursday, said two people familiar with the plan, whose details were still being finalized. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the pending order ahead of a formal announcement.
Hello – this is Jessica Glenza taking over from Martin Belam. Among the most high profile events happening in Washington DC today is the first Covid-19 briefing, which the Biden administration promised will be a regular feature of his administration.
At 11am ET, we’re expecting Biden’s first Covid-19 briefing. Here’s a closer look at what is expected:
(AP) - For nearly a year it was the Trump show. Now President Joe Biden is calling up the nation’s top scientists and public health experts to regularly brief the American public about the pandemic that has claimed more than 425,000 US lives.
Beginning Wednesday, administration experts will host briefings three times a week on the state of the outbreak, efforts to control it and the race to deliver vaccines and therapeutics to end it.
Continue reading...Republican divisions over Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial came into clearer focus on Sunday, as the former president spent his first weekend out of office plotting revenge against those he says betrayed him.
Related: Can Trump do a Nixon and re-enter polite society? Elizabeth Drew doubts it
Continue reading...The House will transmit the article against the former president on Monday, giving his legal team time to prepare their case
Opening arguments in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump are set to begin the week of 8 February, with the former president facing charges of inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol.
The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, announced the schedule late Friday after reaching an agreement with Republicans.
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The justice department has said it will not pursue insider trading charges against Republican senator Richard Burr.
The New York Times reports:
The Justice Department informed Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, on Tuesday that it would not pursue insider trading charges against him, according to his lawyer and another person briefed on the decision, quietly ending a monthslong investigation into his dumping of hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock in the turbulent early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision by the department and the Securities and Exchange Commission effectively cleared a cloud of legal jeopardy that has loomed over Mr. Burr since the sales were first disclosed in March. At the crux of the case was whether Mr. Burr, then the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had acted based on nonpublic information about the contagion that he received at senators-only briefings.
California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra launched 9 lawsuits against the Trump administration.
The lawsuits include challenges of:
Continue reading...Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, acknowledged the violent mob that attacked the Capitol earlier this month was 'provoked' by Donald Trump, going on to say that the inauguration of Joe Biden would be 'safe and successful'.
Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said: 'The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people'
Continue reading...Analysis: The convergent crises call for a united response, the president-elect argues, but Republicans say that means forgetting Trump’s alleged role in insurrection
When Joe Biden takes the oath of office on Wednesday, the new president will appeal for national unity from the steps of the US Capitol, where two weeks ago a mob, incited by Donald Trump, stormed the building in a violent attempt to prevent this very moment.
Though their efforts failed, the bloody insurrection exposed the fragility of America’s commitment to a peaceful transfer of power, underscored by Trump’s absence at his successor’s inauguration ceremony.
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Nearly a month after the presidential election, former attorney general Bill Barr told Donald Trump that his repeated claims of a stolen election were “bullshit,” according to a new report in Axios.
Per Axios, the exchange unfolded in the Oval Office, where Trump summoned Barr for a meeting after seeing a story by the Associated Press in which his attorney general told the agency there was evidence of widespread voter fraud in the presidential election.
Steve Dillingham, the director of the US census, is resigning effective on Wednesday, according to Talking Points Memo’s Tierney Sneed. That’s ahead of the end of Dillingham’s term and comes as he faces calls to resign.
Per Sneed:
Census Director Steve Dillingham will be stepping down on Jan. 20, cutting short by nearly a year the five-year director term, which was scheduled to expire on Dec 31.
Dillingham announced his resignation plans in an internal Census Bureau email obtained by TPM.
Continue reading...Trump has accelerated a deliberate strategy by Republicans to weaken faith in elections by making it harder to vote
When an American president is inaugurated, it’s supposed to mark the height of American democracy and power. The elaborate ceremony is designed to convey the peaceful transfer of power and that no matter how bitter the election, the nation is moving on.
Related: Trump official admits family separation policy 'should never have been implemented'
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