Live updates: Senate OKs reconciliation bill; White House to defend ballroom in appeals court
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The Senate pulled an all-nighter Thursday, voting just before dawn to pass the $69.5 billion budget reconciliation package that funds immigration enforcement operations through 2029. The night was not without GOP defections on various amendments, from trying to prohibit President Trump’s anti-weaponization fund to a protest vote against William Pulte’s appointment to lead the U.S.…
We speak with Dr. Adam Hamawy, the former U.S. Army combat surgeon who just won the Democratic nomination in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. He is now the heavy favorite to win the Democratic-leaning district in November and, if elected, would become New Jersey’s first Muslim member of Congress. Hamawy is an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights and volunteered in Gaza during Israel’s genocidal assault on the territory. He has been endorsed by prominent progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth, who credits Hamawy with saving her life after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004.
“I was running on something very simple: that we should be spending on healthcare, not bombs,” Hamawy tells Democracy Now!, criticizing the $1 trillion Pentagon budget. “We need to be spending some of that right here at home to restore our nation, to fund universal healthcare like Medicare for All, to fund tuition-free public college, to rebuild our roads and bridges, to address the housing crisis.”
American democracy, writes political commentator Brian Beutler, is trapped in a precarious contradiction. On one hand, outrage against the corruption and harmful leadership of President Donald Trump has made it likely that he and his party will face backlash at the polls, but at the same time, the likelihood of that backlash provides Trump supporters with “fuel for further attempts to overturn elections.” This creates a situation in which “Trump has everything to lose by losing, and nothing to lose by attempting another coup.” And according to Beutler, the Supreme Court has been motivated to help him do it. “While his corruption will make it easier for Democrats to sweep the midterm elections, it will also make him more determined to steal back their victories,” Beutler explains. “That’s why the past month’s news read the way it did: A slush fund to buy a second insurrection. An election-denying prosecutor in North Carolina named Dan Bishop who’s up to god knows what. A promotion for the acting attorney general who’s promised Trump total loyalty. A new interim spy chief, chosen for his willingness to mine confidential government documents seeking dirt on Trump’s enemies. All while Trump increases the pace of looting, and abandons any pretense of trying to win the old-fashioned way.”More alarming still, says Beutler, is that Republicans in key positions “seem willing or eager to go along with him. His allies in state legislatures helped national Republicans steal perhaps five to 10 House seats through mid-Census gerrymandering. They were given a leg up by Republicans on the Virginia Supreme Court, which summarily voided a voter-approved pro-Democrat gerrymander, and by Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court, who allowed southern Republican legislatures to redraw congressional maps in the middle of primary elections, creating new Republican seats just in time for the midterms.”And it is this meddling by the courts that Beutler argues should have Americans most concerned. As he notes, while in 2020, the Supreme Court and lower courts across the country rejected Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, now, the political landscape has changed, and “they, too, have everything to lose by losing, and nothing to lose by helping Trump complete his coup. In the winter of 2020, their interests diverged, or at least seemed divergent. Today, they are completely aligned.”When Trump staged his political comeback, says Beutler, he “gave the Republican justices a choice: you’re with me or you’re with the Democrats. They didn’t hesitate to pick a side. They went out of their way to protect Trump from political and criminal accountability for the January 6 insurrection. Then when Trump returned to power, they used their shadow docket to advance his interests by fiat, without explaining themselves to the public. And that was before their ruling in Callais, which transformed the Voting Rights Act from a statute that prohibited gerrymanders intended to disenfranchise black voters into a doctrine meant to encourage anti-black gerrymanders and forbid pro-minority gerrymanders.”They’re taking such action because “they can see the anti-Trump rebellion brewing, and they know it doesn’t just threaten their power. It threatens to consign them to the legal anticanon along with some of the country’s greatest historical villains. ... Every law student in America learns about the anticanon — the worst rulings in the Supreme Court’s history: Dred Scott, which upheld slavery. Plessy, which upheld segregation.” Now the Roberts Court has been adding its own decisions that will be decried by history, such as gutting the Voting Rights Act and “Trump v. United States, which transformed the presidency into a zone of lawlessness for would-be dictators.”Today, as Beutler explains, Republicans face a near-future where Democrats score big midterm wins, flipping key districts and states and maybe taking back the Senate, which would allow them to block Trump’s judicial nominees and agenda. “Now ask yourself,” Beutler wonders, “what wouldn’t Roberts and the other justices do to stop this?” In the face of such sweeping Democratic wins, forecasts Beutler, “Trump alleges fraud. So does the loser, Ken Paxton, who also happens to be [Texas’s] sitting attorney general. They race to federal court, claiming Paxton is the rightful victor. A Republican judge disqualifies enough ballots to flip the result. Democrats appeal. The appeal reaches the Supreme Court quickly. Control of the Senate, and thus the legitimacy of the entire U.S. government, hangs in the balance.”
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee voted along party lines late Thursday to advance President Donald Trump’s effort to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, approving the change as part of the $1.15 trillion fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. The committee adopted an amendment from Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), […]
President Donald Trump scored a victory on Capitol Hill when Republicans in the Senate narrowly passed a bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol for the remainder of his term. Meanwhile, the president is unveiling a planned pedestrian bridge between the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac River. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for TODAY.
Lawmakers fleeing the chaotic House of Representatives for the greener pastures of higher office are finding the doors are shut to them by unimpressed voters, according to a report.Nearly 30 House members have discovered that service in Congress has become a political liability rather than an asset.Politico reported that the exodus of House members seeking promotions has resulted in a cascade of primary defeats, leaving some lawmakers wishing they had simply remained in their current positions and relied on incumbency to keep them employed.The pattern has been unmistakable in recent weeks. Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) lost Iowa's GOP gubernatorial nomination despite a late Trump endorsement. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R) fell short in South Dakota's gubernatorial race. Rep. Chip Roy (R) lost a Texas attorney general runoff.House Democrats have fared no better. In Illinois, Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi both lost to the state's lieutenant governor in the Senate primary. In Texas, high-profile Rep. Jasmine Crockett was defeated by a state representative in the Democratic Senate race.The reason, according to members themselves, is straightforward: voters blame Congress for being dysfunctional and see House members as part of the problem rather than the solution, according to Politico."There's definitely those out there who think, 'Well, it's broken, and they've been in it a long time, and obviously it's still broken,' so we kind of get the blame for it," said Rep. Buddy Carter, who failed to reach a runoff in Georgia's Republican Senate primary last month.The shift marks a dramatic reversal. Congressional service was once a stepping stone to higher office — half of last year's freshmen senators previously served in the House. Now, members fear their Capitol Hill tenure has become toxic.State-level officials and political outsiders are capitalizing on anti-Washington sentiment. "The voters all across the country aren't particularly fond of D.C., so are you perceived to be part of the establishment or someone that's been battling it?" asked Rep. David Schweikert, now running for Arizona's GOP gubernatorial nomination.According to the report, the pattern extends to specific races. GOP Rep. John Rose trails Sen. Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee gubernatorial polling, even as he downplays his congressional service in campaign ads, identifying himself as "a father, a farmer and a CEO" while omitting any mention of his House seat.The consequences ripple beyond individual campaigns. In South Carolina, Tuesday's GOP gubernatorial primary could end the political careers of Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace, with Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette positioned as the frontrunner after winning Trump's endorsement.According to Politico, the mounting primary losses create additional complications for House leadership already struggling to maintain attendance. Speaker Mike Johnson has canceled multiple voting days this year to accommodate members' primary schedules, with the risk of further no-shows likely to increase as more House members pursue long-shot bids for higher office.
The corrupt and crazy lady trying to stop the building of the White House ballroom is cooked.
The post President Trump Outs Crazy Corrupt Lib Trying to Prevent Construction of White House Ballroom appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
