Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The Russian Embassy says it refused entry to Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire, because she's on a "black list" created in response to U.S. sanctions. Shaheen and Republican Sens. Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, and John Barrasso, of Wyoming, planned to travel to Russia in January, but the trip is now canceled.
The United States Air Force announced on Thursday that the 115th Fighter Wing at Truax Field, Dane County Regional Airport is one of two preferred candidate bases to receive the F-35A Lightning II. Governor Scott Walker says the decision is "outstanding" for the state.
Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote, creating 50-50 tie in legislature - NEWPORT NEWS - A Republican seat flipped Democratic in a wild recount Tuesday - with the Democrat winning by a single vote - creating a rare 50-50 tie between the parties in the House of Delegates In Virginia, a 11,608-to-11,607 Lesson in the Power of a Single Vote - The Democratic wave that rose on Election Day in Virginia last month delivered a final crash on the sand Tuesday when a Democratic challenger defeated a Republican incumbent by a single vote, leaving the Virginia House House must revote on approved final GOP tax bill, fearing Byrd Rule objections - The House will revote on the bill it passed to much fanfare Tuesday afternoon, fearing procedural violations in the version it already passed.
House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is tantalizingly close to achieving one of his top remaining cybersecurity goals - a year before he gives up the gavel after six years of running the committee - in creating a prominent, stand-alone cybersecurity agency within the Department of Homeland Security. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act was unanimously approved by the House on Dec. 11, and the fate of McCaul's bill is now in the hands of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and other senators, who apparently want to make some last-minute tweaks to the measure.
Parts of a letter written by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., to FBI director Christopher Wray are photographed in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. Johnson says edits to a draft FBI statement on the Hillary Clinton email investigation appear to have watered down the significance of the bureau's findings.
Sen. Marco Rubio hinted he could create "problems" for the Republicans' tax plan if party leaders reject his plan to add more benefits for the working poor while increasing the corporate tax rate. Now, with his demand reportedly rejected in a particularly stinging fashion, Rubio has to decide how big he wants those "problems" to be.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., continues his efforts for small businesses in the GOP tax reform conferencing between the House and Senate, saying the "Committee on Taxation is completely in La La Land" on potential revenue losses that will "hemorrhage" from federal tax rolls. "I'm really concerned that if we don't close that widened disparity between pass-throughs and C corps, we will incentivize pass-throughs to convert to C corp status, and we will hemorrhage revenues of the federal government," Sen. Johnson told "The Cats Roundtable" on AM 970-N.Y. "A lot of my colleagues aren't really focusing on that, and the Joint Committee on Taxation [JCT} is completely in La La Land denying that potential reality."
Two U.S. senators wrote to the Justice Department's inspector general on Wednesday requesting more information about the FBI agent who was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller's team over private text messages he allegedly sent during the election that were critical of President Donald Trump. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley asked the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, to answer a series of... WSJ's Gerald F. Seib explains what have we learned after Special Counsel Robert Mueller unveiled his first two big actions in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
Approved in the dead of night, when virtually nobody was watching, the biggest change in U.S. tax law in decades included last-minute revisions that skewed the bill even more toward the rich. historians write about the broader atrophy of the American system of governance, the passage of the 2017 tax-reform bill will be an illuminating event to dwell upon.
It's something that seemed up in the air less than 24 hours before the vote, unlikely just a few months ago and completely unfathomable despite bold claims to the contrary midway through President Donald Trump's first year in office. Yet the Republican-controlled US Senate, by a vote of 51-49, early Saturday morning passed a historic overhaul of the US tax code, clearing what has long been considered the largest and most byzantine hurdle in an effort that hasn't been completed in more than 31 years.
Reporters get an update from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a member of the Senate Budget Committee, as Republican senators gather to meet with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on the GOP effort to overhaul the tax code, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. McConnell turned to one of his harshest antagonists to help pass the most sweeping tax package in more than three decades.
When Republicans tried to repeal and replace Obamacare over the summer, they acted like "a bunch of free range chickens", said Republican Senator John Kennedy. "Everybody was upset, tired, mad, people drawing lines in the dirt."
The Republican chase for a rare political and policy win with passage of their tax plan has thinned the ranks of the party's deficit hawks. The last one standing in the Senate chamber was Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, and he was resigned to defeat.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said "we have the votes" to pass the tax reform bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced he has secured at least 50 votes needed to pass a $1.4 trillion tax cut bill later this afternoon.
The change was a key last-minute revision to the bill meant to gain the votes of Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Steve Daines of Montana. Republicans will increase the size of the one-time tax on overseas corporate earnings to pay for bigger small business tax breaks in their tax bill, several senators said Friday.
Republican senators say tax reform would benefit small businesses but their true goal is to help the biggest firms, a fact dramatically illustrated by a Republican-on-Republican policy fight this week. The legislation would reduce the top corporate tax rate, the one paid by the largest publicly-traded companies, from 35 to 20 percent.
Hours before Senate Republicans were scheduled to vote on a tax proposal that doesn't technically exist in final legislative form, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell strode to the floor McConnell was foiled over the summer and fall by the GOP effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, suffering a number of embarrassing defeats that illustrated his inability to wrangle the Republican Senate conference. Tax reform would be different, promised McConnell and other GOP leaders.
Really? It didn't look that way yesterday evening when three of their Republican colleagues nearly derailed the tax reform bill on a procedural vote. After intense negotiations this morning and a little horse-trading, though, John Cornyn told reporters that GOP leadership have 50 votes whipped for the bill's final vote, expected later today or early tomorrow: Pressed if that means GOP leadership has the 50 votes needed to let Vice President Pence break a tie, he added "yes."
Senate Republicans are stepping quickly to meet competing demands of holdout GOP senators for a tax overhaul package expected to add $1 trillion to the nation's deficit over 10 years. The Republicans eye a crucial final vote Friday on the $1.4 trillion Senate bill carrying the hopes of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party to preserve their majorities in next year's elections.
Daines previously had held out because, he said, the bill did not do enough to provide tax cuts to non-corporate businesses relative to big C corporations, which the bill would give a 20 percent tax rate. Montana's Steve Daines, one of only two announced "no" votes on the Senate Republican tax bill, said he would support the motion to proceed to the legislation, and said his criticisms about the bill's small business provisions had been addressed.