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Senate Democrats Poised To Reject Plutocratic GOP Budget Bill

House Democrats are calling on their colleagues in the Senate to reject the GOP-passed spending bill—and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he’s got the votes to do just that.

“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input—any input from congressional Democrats,” Schumer said Wednesday. “Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House.”

The Republican-led House caved to President Donald Trump and co-president Elon Musk Tuesday, passing a spending bill that would force $880 billion over 10 years in cuts from social safety net programs like Medicaid. The move is a naked attempt to extend GOP tax cuts for the rich at the expense of working-class Americans.

While Republicans were able to pass the bill in the House with the vote of only one Democrat, it’s a different story in the Senate, where Republicans will need Democrats to help them. And so far, they’re not getting it.

“They should refuse to allow this bill to pass in the Senate,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, warned her Senate counterparts on Tuesday. “If they don't, I think there's going to be a huge backlash from across the country. And I think, all of them will, you know, will have to deal with the consequences of that.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was also clear about her feelings on the matter. “The Republicans have the White House, the Senate, and the House. If they want to do this, and if they want to screw over the American people, they can do this with their votes and their party. I do not believe that Democrats should participate.”

“Everyone needs to call their Dem Senator right now. They are starting to cave,” wrote Ocasio-Cortez on her social media account, adding that voters should “Tell them: 1. Vote NO on Cloture AND 2. Vote NO on the Republican spending bill. Don’t let them pivot to reconciliation. GOP doesn’t need Dem votes on that and they know it.”

Maybe Schumer and his fellow Senate Democrats have been getting those calls from voters—and at least for now, they seem to be listening.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

GOP Senator Rejects Trump Plan To End Debt Limit

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said he will vote against President-elect Donald Trump's plan to eliminate or raise the debt limit.

During a Sunday interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo noted that Trump planned to eliminate or raise the debt limit as part of a large bill that would include funding border security.

"President Trump wants eliminating or raising the debt ceiling in this first big package," Bartiromo told Johnson. "Will you vote for it?"

"No, we absolutely need a debt ceiling limit," Johnson insisted. "I'll negotiate in terms of how far we increase that. There are all kinds of things we could do, but it starts with, again, going back to a baseline spending this reasonable amount as part of the negotiation on increasing debt limit."

"But we absolutely need that debt limit, or there's no control over out-of-control government spending," he added.

"And therein lies the issue here," Bartiromo pointed out. "We are going to see battles ahead."

Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

GOP Senators Rejecting Trump's Nomination Of Gaetz As Attorney General

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) may be the next Attorney General of the United States if President-elect Donald Trump has his way. But even with a Republican-controlled Senate, Gaetz's future is uncertain.

On the social media platform Bluesky, journalist Joshua Friedman quoted Punchbowl News co-founder John Bresnahan who said that Republicans were "stunned — and not in a good way" by the prospect of Gaetz being in charge of the DOJ and its roughly 115,000 employees. He added that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was "so exasperated by reporters asking him about Gaetz that he stopped talking and stood there stone-faced for 30 seconds."

Senate Republicans' immediate reaction to the news of Gaetz being selected to head the Department of Justice were not positive. The Washington Post's Liz Goodwin tweeted a thread of various responses she got from Republicans after the news broke of the president-elect's pick for the nation's top law enforcement official.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is one of the more moderate members of the Senate Republican Conference. She told Goodwin that there will likely be "many many questions" for the Florida Republican at his confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and that she was personally "shocked" after hearing that Trump picked him.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who is another GOP Senate moderate, gave nonverbal disapproval of Gaetz's nomination. Goodwin tweeted that she asked Murkowski: "Do you think he's a serious candidate?" The Alaska senator reportedly shook her head "no" before walking onto the Senate floor.

Republicans' apparent uneasiness about promoting Gaetz to head the DOJ didn't end with more moderate members of the conference. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), who delivered the official Republican response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address in March, told Goodwin "I got nothing for you" when asked to give her thoughts on Gaetz.

Even the most positive responses to Gaetz's nomination were merely noncommittal. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) would only say he would give the Florida congressman an "honest look," though he also noted that Gaetz had "jousted" with Senate Republicans on several issues in the past. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said that while he was typically "bullish" on the president-elect's Cabinet picks, he would still "have to noodle that one a little while" when asked about Gaetz as attorney general.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is preparing to become the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee once the Republican Senate majority is sworn in on January 3. But even he said that Gaetz would likely have to answer "tough questions" from committee members in his confirmation hearing. Goodwin reported that Graham said he was "surprised" by Trump's decision to tap Gaetz for DOJ.

If confirmed, Gaetz would be the first Attorney General of the United States to have been previously investigated by the DOJ. While Gaetz was ultimately not charged for alleged sex trafficking of minors, that didn't spare him from the Republican-controlled House Committee on Ethics. The committee announced in June that the allegations about their colleague "merit continued review," as it had identified "additional allegations" that weren't specified. (EDITORS NOTE: Gaetz resigned from the House on November 13, one day before the ethics committee was set to release its report on his alleged offenses.)

Republicans also have a fractious relationship with Gaetz due to his role in orchestrating the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in October of 2023. His work to strip McCarthy of the gavel led to a weeks-long public intra-party struggle that resulted in three separate House GOP leaders vying for the speakership before the job ultimately went to Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA).

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

As Iraqi Militants Launch New Attacks, Maliki Rejects Unity Government

By Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD — Embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday sharply rejected calls to form a national unity government, striking a defiant tone in the face of U.S. pressure to share more political power as a rebellion by Sunni Muslim insurgents threatens his grip on the country.

Maliki’s rivals have urged a “national salvation government” that would demonstrate solidarity against the uprising led by an al-Qaida splinter group. But in a weekly address, Maliki, a member of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, dismissed the idea as “an attempt to eliminate the democratic experiment and to neglect the constitution.”

Even as he spoke, insurgents were launching attacks on a major air base at Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, a former U.S. military installation that currently houses a range of Iraqi military hardware including surveillance planes and pickup trucks equipped with machine guns.

Officials in Iraq’s western Anbar province, which is largely in the hands of the Sunni militants, said Syrian warplanes bombed two sites near the Iraq-Syria border, ostensibly targeting border crossings that the Islamist militants had seized in recent days.

Iraqi state media had earlier attributed the air strikes to U.S. drones, which the Pentagon denied. The involvement by Syria, if confirmed, illustrates how the sectarian feud in Iraq could drag in the wider Middle East.

Maliki’s government, dominated by the Shiite majority, has come under growing pressure to cede more authority to minority Sunnis and Kurds. President Obama declared last week that if Maliki doesn’t form an inclusive national government, Iraq risks sliding back into civil warfare.

A senior U.S. intelligence official who briefed reporters on Tuesday said the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the al-Qaida offshoot leading the insurgent movement, “continues to threaten the air base … as it moves south toward Baghdad.”

Ninety U.S. troops — the first of up to 300 advisers ordered to Iraq by Obama — have arrived in Baghdad, where they were beginning to establish a joint operations center with Iraqi forces to help counter the Sunni insurgency. Four additional teams totaling about 50 people were expected to reach Iraq in the coming days, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in Washington.

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Senate Democrats Poised To Reject Plutocratic GOP Budget Bill

GOP Senator Rejects Trump Plan To End Debt Limit

GOP Senators Rejecting Trump's Nomination Of Gaetz As Attorney General

As Iraqi Militants Launch New Attacks, Maliki Rejects Unity Government

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