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Tag: house democrats
Marjorie Taylor Greene

Democrats Standing With Republicans Against 'Pro-Putin' GOP Faction

Some House Democrats and House Republicans are coming together toward a common opponent: far-right “pro-Putin” hardliners in the House Republican conference, who appear to be led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Congresswoman Greene has been threatening to oust the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Last month she filed a “motion to vacate the chair.” If she chooses to call it up she could force a vote on the House floor to try to remove Speaker Johnson.

House Democrats say they are willing to vote against ousting Johnson, as long as the Speaker puts on the floor desperately needed and long-awaited legislation to fund aid to Ukraine and Israel. Johnson has refused to put the Ukraine aid bill on the floor for months, but after Iran attacked Israel Johnson switched gears. Almost all Democrats and a seemingly large number of Republicans want to pass the Ukraine and Israel aid packages.

Forgoing the possibility of installing Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker, which is conceivable given Johnson’s now one-vote majority, Democrats say if Johnson does the right thing, they will throw him their support.

“I think he’ll be in good shape,” to get Democrats to support him, if he puts the Ukraine aid bill on the floor, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) told CNN Thursday. “I would say that there’s a lot of support for the underlying bills. I think those are vital.”

“If these bills were delivered favorably, and the aid was favorably voted upon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene went up there with a motion to remove him, for instance, I think there’s gonna be a lot of Democrats that move to kill that motion,” Congressman Krishnamoorthi said. “They don’t want to see him getting punished for doing the right thing.”

“I think it is a very bad policy of the House to allow one individual such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is an arsonist to this House of Representatives,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane, when asked about intervening to save Johnson. He added he doesn’t want her “to have so much influence.”

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, one of several Republicans who won their New York districts in 2022, districts that were previously held by Democrats, opposes Greene’s motion to vacate – although he praised the Georgia GOP congresswoman.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports Republicans “say it’s time to marginalize hardliners blocking [their] agenda.”

D’Esposito, speaking to Raju, called for “repercussions for those who completely alienate the will of the conference. The people gave us the majority because they wanted Republicans to govern.”

Rep. Mike Lawler, like D’Esposito is another New York Republican who won a previously Democratic seat in 2022. Lawler spoke out against the co-sponsor of Greene’s motion to vacate, Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), along with two other House Republicans who are working to block the Ukraine aid bill via their powerful seats on the Rules Committee.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a former Navy pilot, blasted Greene.

“Time is of the essence” for Ukraine, Rep. Sherrill told CNN Wednesday night. “The least we can do is support our Democratic allies, especially given what we know Putin to do. To watch a report and to think there are people like Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right that are pro-Putin? That are pro-Russia? It is really shocking.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), as NCRM reported Thursday, had denounced Greene.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it,” he said, referring to the Ukraine aid bill Greene and her cohorts want to tank. “I mean that’s a strange position to take.”

The far-right hardliners are also causing chaos in the House.

“Things just got very heated on the House floor,” NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin reported earlier Thursday. “Group of hardliners were trying to pressure Johnson to only put Israel aid on the floor and hold Ukraine aid until the Senate passed HR2.”

HR2 is the House Republicans’ extremist anti-immigrant legislation that has n o chance of passage in the Senate nor would it be signed into law by President Biden.

“Johnson said he couldn’t do it, and [Rep. Derrick] Van Orden,” a far-right Republican from Wisconsin “called him ‘tubby’ and vowed to bring on the MTV [Motion to Vacate.]”

“No one in the group [Gaetz, Boebert, Burchett, Higgins, Donalds et al.] was threatening Johnson with an MTV,” Tsirkin added. “Van Orden seemed to escalate things dramatically…”

Despite Greene’s pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine positions, her falsehoods about “Ukrainian Nazis,” and Russians not slaughtering Ukrainian clergy, reporters continue to “swarm”:

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Donald Trump

Fox Glosses Over Millions Paid To Trump By Foreign Regimes

Fox News anchor Bret Baier provided one of the network’s few acknowledgements of a House Democratic report documenting millions of dollars in payments by foreign governments to former President Donald Trump’s businesses while he was in office. In a headline report taking up less than 40 seconds — the first mention of the story at all Thursday on Fox News — Baier focused primarily on the Trump Organization’s rebuttal, which attempted to change the subject to Fox’s shared obsession with Hunter Biden.

Fox News has spent years claiming that President Joe Biden was compromised by foreign governments — especially China — only to have a congressional report point the finger at Trump instead. Media Matters found that Fox’s dayside programming failed to mention this story at all, even though it had received extensive coverage Thursday morning in both The New York Timesand The Washington Post, as well as in Fox’s corporate cousin The Wall Street Journal.

Baier’s brief headline report featured two arguments from the Trump Organization: that Trump supposedly donated profits derived from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury while in office; and that one of the highlighted business transactions involved a Trump Tower lease that was first signed in 2008, before Trump ran for president.

The Trump Organization stated in 2018 that it had donated over $150,000 to the U.S. Treasury, followed by more payments in 2019 and 2020, supposedly representing the profits derived from foreign governments doing business at Trump hotels. Even at the time, experts pointed out that the company provided no transparency into how this figure was calculated. (The House Democratic report revealed that the Chinese government and state-controlled entities spent $5.5 million at Trump properties throughout his time in office, and other foreign governments paid $2.3 million to his businesses.)

And the money spent at Trump’s properties is just one of many potential conflicts of interest highlighted in the House Democrats’ report. The report also mentions a story that ran years ago regarding Ivanka Trump’s apparent ability to fast-track trademark approvals in China after her father was elected. One such occasion, in which then-President Trump publicly supported the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE, drew criticism at the time for creating at least the appearance of a serious conflict of interest.

Additionally, the argument that some of these arrangements may have predated Trump’s presidency underscores the vacuity of Fox’s ongoing coverage of Republican-led investigations into the Biden family — all of which are meant to provide a pretext to impeach Biden. Many of these supposed bombshell reports have focused on business deals by either the president’s son Hunter or the president’s brother James. Many of these supposed smoking guns have involved events that took place in 2017 and 2018, when Joe Biden didn’t hold any public office and seemed unlikely to ever do so again. And nobody has ever demonstrated actual involvement of Joe Biden.

Baier is set to host Trump on Fox next week, co-moderating a town hall event that Trump is holding with the network instead of participating in a Republican primary debate on CNN.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

House Passes Marijuana Legalization, But Senate Prospects Are Dim

House Passes Marijuana Legalization, But Senate Prospects Are Dim

By Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill to end the federal ban on marijuana, which has created legal headaches for users and businesses in the states that have legalized it, though the measure was seen as unlikely to pass the Senate.

It passed by 220-204, with few Republicans supporting the measure.

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, which is in the process of legalizing the drug, removes marijuana from the list of controlled substances and eliminates criminal penalties for individuals who grow, distribute or possess it.

But the MORE act will need to gain 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate before moving to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature, an outcome widely seen as unlikely given the lack of Republican support for the measure.

The bill would "end decades of failed and unjust marijuana policy," Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) said on the House floor on Thursday ahead of the vote. "It is clear prohibition is over. Today we have an opportunity to chart a new path forward on federal cannabis policy that actually makes sense."

He added that the bill does not force any state to legalize marijuana.

Marijuana users and businesses that sell it face a complicated legal patchwork in the U.S, where 37 states have legalized it in some form -- either for recreation or medical use -- while 13 still ban it entirely.

Because federal law classifies cannabis as an illegal drug with no medical uses, researchers are severely limited in how they can study the drug and its impacts, making policy difficult to write.

Cannabis businesses are also largely blocked from the U.S. banking system because of the federal ban.

Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-MN) called the legislation "not only flawed but dangerous," arguing on the House floor that it did not protect minors and would encourage people to open marijuana businesses.

Legalization of marijuana is extremely popular among Americans: a 2021 Pew Research Center poll found that 91% agreed that either medical or recreational use should be allowed.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has proposed his own bill that would legalize marijuana, and has committed to moving forward with it in April.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

House Approves Ukraine Aid, Russia Oil Ban, Averts Federal Shutdown

House Approves Ukraine Aid, Russia Oil Ban, Averts Federal Shutdown

By Richard Cowan and Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to rush $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine as it battles invading Russian forces, along with $1.5 trillion to keep U.S. government programs operating through Sept. 30 and avoid agency shutdowns this weekend.

The House approved the wide-ranging appropriations in bipartisan votes, sending the legislation to the Senate which aims to act by a midnight Friday deadline when existing U.S. government funds expire.

The aid for Ukraine is intended to help bolster its military as it battles Russian forces and provide humanitarian assistance to citizens, including an estimated 1.5 million refugees already seeking safety abroad.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated that the $13.6 billion is likely to be just the tip of a much broader aid effort.

"All of us will have to do more" to help Ukraine in coming weeks or months and over the long-term to help it rebuild, Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference.

She was mainly referring to the United States and its NATO allies.

The House also passed legislation, by a vote of 414-17 to ban U.S. imports of Russian oil and other energy in response to its attack on Ukraine. Fifteen Republicans and two Democrats opposed the measure.

Passage of the bill came one day after President Joe Biden used his executive powers to impose such a ban. The House measure put lawmakers on record as firmly supporting the U.S. trade ban. It also calls for reviewing Russia's participation in some international trade programs, such as the World Trade Organization.

Lawmakers abandoned an effort to attach language revoking Russia's permanent normal trade relations status, which would have allowed the United States to raise tariffs on Russian imports above levels afforded all WTO members.

The U.S. government funding bill passed following a revolt from Pelosi's own Democrats who objected to a $15.6 billion COVID-19 aid initiative because of the way it would have parceled out money to individual states. The money was to be used for research and to stockpile vaccines for possible future spikes in COVID-19 infections.

Following hours of delay, Pelosi had the provision deleted to clear the way for quick passage of the Ukraine money and the "omnibus" $1.5 trillion in federal funding.

Democrats hope to revisit the COVID aid next week in separate legislation.

'Desperate Hour'

The huge government spending bill is the first to reflect Democrats' spending priorities under President Joe Biden, following four years of the Trump administration.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro said it increases non-defense domestic spending by 6.7% over last year, the largest rise in four years.

The Ukraine aid package, DeLauro said, would "help the Ukrainian people in their most desperate hour of need."

Republicans also applauded the measure - a rare display of bipartisanship in the deeply divided Congress.

"We must get this bill to the president's desk as soon as possible to respond to these acts of aggression," said Ken Calvert, the top Republican on the defense subcommittee of the appropriations panel.

He was referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and specifically the bombing of a hospital earlier on Wednesday. Failure, he added, "would undoubtedly demonstrate weakness on a global scale."

With money for the federal government due to run out at midnight on Friday, the Democratic-controlled House also unanimously approved a separate measure to keep the government funded through Tuesday.

This was seen mainly as a housekeeping step so that congressional clerks would have enough time to process the sprawling omnibus bill following House and Senate passage. That clerical work could extend beyond the midnight Friday deadline.

Acting White House budget director Shalanda Young urged Congress to promptly approve the Ukraine aid and government funding measure and send it to Biden for signing into law.

"The bipartisan funding bill is proof that both parties can come together to deliver for the American people and advance critical national priorities," Young said in a statement.

The omnibus spending plan will boost funding for domestic priorities, including money for infrastructure passed under an earlier bipartisan measure to revamp U.S. roads, bridges and broadband internet.

The plan includes $730 billion in non-defense funding and $782 billion for the U.S. military.

Amid fears that Russia and other "bad actors" could wage cyber attacks against U.S. infrastructure, the government funding bill increases the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency budget by $568.7 million for a total of $2.6 billion for this fiscal year.

In its continuing attempt to unravel the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" immigration policy, the bill provided no additional money for immigration hearing facilities that support the program, which forced tens of thousands of migrants to wait in Mexico pending resolution of their U.S. asylum cases.

(Reporting by David Morgan, Makini Brice, Richard Cowan and Susan Heavey, additional reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Scott Malone, Doina Chiacu, Jonathan Oatis and Bernard Orr)