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113 House Republicans Vote To Keep Confederate Statues In Capitol

One hundred thirteen House Republicans voted on Wednesday to keep Confederate statues on display in the U.S. Capitol building.

The House voted by a margin of 305-113 to remove statues of persons "who served as an officer or voluntarily with the Confederate States of America or of the military forces or government of a State while the State was in rebellion against the United States."

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Internal Polls Show Trump Jeopardizing Safe GOP House Seats

Republicans entered the 2020 cycle as longshots to win control of the House back after the party was unceremoniously swept out of power in the midterm elections.

But the GOP hoped to at least chip away at the Democrats' majority in November, when Democrats will be defending 31 seats Donald Trump carried in 2016.

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House GOP Candidates Drop Attacks On Obamacare

Almost none of the top Republican House candidates currently in the running are campaigning on repealing the Affordable Care Act in 2020, even as Donald Trump himself pushes to get rid of the law.

Last week — despite the ongoing pandemic — the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to strike down the 2010 law, commonly known as Obamacare. If the Court agrees, 20 million Americans would likely lose their health coverage.

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Twitter Blocks Rep. Gaetz Post Calling To 'Hunt Down' Protesters


Twitter has restricted access to a tweet posted Monday by Rep. Matt Gaetz, in which the Florida Republican called for what commenters described as extrajudicial killings of protesters.

"Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?" Gaetz tweeted, joining Donald Trump and other Republicans in blaming anti-fascists for the violence across the country at protests over the death of George Floyd.

Floyd, an unarmed black man, died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for eight minutes, even as Floyd said he could not breathe. Autopsies have found that Floyd died of asphyxia.While Gaetz's tweet is still up, users have to click on it to see its contents. It's covered by a box that reads, "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public's interest for the Tweet to remain accessible."

Democratic lawmakers called out Gaetz in response to the tweet and urged Twitter to remove it from the social media platform.

"Take the Gaetz tweet down right now @twitter. RIGHT NOW," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted Monday night. "The survivors of mass shootings are lighting up my phone. They are scared to death this will inspire someone to start shooting into a crowd tonight. They are right."

After Twitter took action against his tweet, Gaetz said, "Their warning is my badge of honor."

"Antifa is a terrorist organization, encouraging riots that hurt Americans. Our government should hunt them down. Twitter should stop enabling them. I'll keep saying it," Gaetz said in a tweet that he pinned to the top of his profile page.

Donald Trump has demanded that the antifa movement be labeled a domestic terrorist organization.

However, as factcheck.org noted, "There is no such official federal designation for domestic terrorism organizations." Even if such a designation existed, the site said, it would be "difficult or questionable" to categorize antifa in that manner because it is not an organized group with a hierarchy and leadership.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.