House passes resolution to overturn new federal gun regulation; Joe Biden vows veto
House Republicans passed a resolution that would repeal a Biden administration rule tightening federal regulations on stabilizing braces for firearms, an accessory that has been used in several mass shootings in the U.S. over the last decade. The resolution passed 219-210 nearly on party lines and after a contentious floor debate where Republicans accused the administration of “executive overreach,” and Democrats condemned a bill they said would “help kill people.” Two Democrats voted in support, and two Republicans voted against it. The resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., will now go to the Senate, which could take up the measure as soon as this week. Should it pass, President Joe Biden has promised a veto. Overriding a presidential veto would require two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate. The new rule issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in January treats guns with the accessories like short-barreled rifles, a weapon that is like a sawed-off shotgun and has been heavily regulated since the 1930s. The regulation, which went into effect June 1, was one of several steps Biden announced in 2021 after a man using a stabilizing brace killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. A stabilizing brace was also used in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that left nine people dead in 2019 and most recently in a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. Stabilizing braces transform a pistol into a weapon that’s powerful and easy to conceal, Attorney General Merrick Garland said when he announced the rule. Originally developed for disabled veterans, gun-control groups have said the accessories have became a loophole exploited by gunmakers to make weapons more deadly. Since taking effect earlier this month, the rule requires anyone who has a gun with an arm-stabilizing brace to register the weapon with the federal government and pay a fee or remove the brace from their weapons. Republicans employed the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to undo recently enacted executive branch regulations, to try and nullify the new rule that they claim has turned millions of gun owners into felons. “This rule doesn’t just infringe upon Americans’ Second Amendment liberties. It represents a dangerous government overreach by the administration,” Clyde said during debate Tuesday. “Congress maintains sole legislative authority, not government agencies, not the executive branch.” Several lawsuits have been filed against the regulations by gun owners and state attorneys general. They say it violates Second Amendment protections by requiring millions of people to alter or register their weapons. In some cases, judges have recently agreed to temporarily block enforcement of the rule for the plaintiffs in a setback for the Biden administration. House Democrats defended the rule on Tuesday, saying it could save lives. “How many more mass shootings need to happen? How many more kids need to die before my Republican colleagues pull their heads out of the sand and realize that the NRA money is not worth the damage that’s been done to our country,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. The main sponsor for the measure, Clyde, is a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and the owner of a gun store in his district in Georgia. His proposal to overturn the ATF rule first came to the House Judiciary Committee in late March for markup. But House Republicans postponed debate of the measure after a gunman used a weapon with a stabilizing brace to fatally shoot three children and three adults at an elementary school in Nashville, Tenn. Last week, Clyde claimed GOP leadership had blocked his resolution from reaching the floor as retribution for his no vote on a bipartisan agreement to lift the debt ceiling, which leaders denied. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said he and Rep. Tom Emmer, the GOP’s chief vote-counter, had been working intensely to ensure enough support to pass the legislation in the narrowly divided House. “We’ve been moving people every week on this bill,” Scalise said. “It has not been easy.” Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
January 6 panel seeks interview with Donald Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan
The House panel investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection on Wednesday requested an interview with Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress, as the committee closes in on members of its own chamber. In a letter to Jordan, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, Democratic chairman of the panel, said the panel wants the lawmaker to provide information for its investigation surrounding his communications with Trump on January 6 and Trump’s efforts to challenge the result of the 2020 election. “We understand that you had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on January 6th,” the letter reads. “We would like to discuss each such communication with you in detail.” The request is the second by the nine-member panel this week and launches a new phase for the lawmakers on the committee, who have so far resisted going after one of their own as they investigate the insurrection by supporters and his efforts to overturn the election. Jordan is a staunch supporter of the former president’s false claims about voter fraud. The lawmaker brought those claims up during an October hearing on a motion to hold former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon in contempt for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena. In that hearing, Jordan admitted once again that he spoke with Trump on the day of the attack. “Of course, I talked to the president,” Jordan told members of the Rules Committee, in response to questioning from the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “I talked to him that day. I’ve been clear about that. I don’t recall the number of times, but it’s not about me. I know you want to make it about that.” A request for comment from Jordan’s office was not immediately returned. The panel is also seeking information regarding Jordan’s meeting with Trump and members of his administration in November and December 2020, and in early January 2021, “about strategies for overturning the results of the 2020 election.” The letter goes on to say the committee is also interested in any discussions Jordan may have had during that time regarding the possibility of presidential pardons for people involved in any aspect of the Capitol attack or the planning for the two rallies that took place that day. Thompson writes that Jordan has already publicly signaled a willingness to cooperate with the panel’s efforts to get answers about January 6, citing the lawmaker’s quote from that October hearing: “I’ve said all along, I have nothing to hide. I’ve been straightforward all along.” On Monday, the committee sent a similar request to Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who the panel believes had “an important role” in efforts to install then-Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general in late 2020. Perry rejected the committee’s request Tuesday, calling the committee and its investigation “illegitimate.” In response, Tim Mulvey, a committee spokesperson, said that while the panel prefers to gather evidence from members “cooperatively,” it will pursue such information “using other tools” if necessary. The panel has already interviewed about 300 people as it seeks to create a comprehensive record of the Jan. 6 attack and the events leading up to it. Trump at the time was pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud and lobbying Vice President Mike Pence and Republican members of Congress to try to overturn the count at the January 6 congressional certification. Election officials across the country, along with the courts, had repeatedly dismissed Trump’s claims. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
House sends debt limit hike to Joe Biden, staving off default
The House has approved a short-term increase to the nation’s debt limit, ensuring the federal government can continue fully paying its bills into December and temporarily averting an unprecedented default that would have decimated the economy. The $480 billion increase in the country’s borrowing ceiling cleared the Senate last week on a party-line vote. The House approved it Tuesday so President Joe Biden can sign it into law this week. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned that steps to stave off a default on the country’s debts would be exhausted by Monday, and from that point, the department would soon be unable to fully meet the government’s financial obligations. A default would have immense fallout on global financial markets built upon the bedrock safety of U.S. government debt. Routine government payments to Social Security beneficiaries, disabled veterans, and active-duty military personnel would also be called into question. The relief provided by passage of the legislation will only be temporary, though, forcing Congress to revisit the issue in December — a time when lawmakers will also be laboring to complete federal spending bills and avoid a damaging government shutdown. The yearend backlog raises risks for both parties and threatens a tumultuous close to Biden’s first year in office. “I’m glad that this at least allows us to prevent a totally self-made and utterly preventable economic catastrophe as we work on a longer-term plan,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. Republicans signaled the next debt limit debate won’t be any easier and warned Democrats not to expect their help. “Unless and until Democrats give up on their dream of a big-government, socialist America, Republicans cannot and will not support raising the debt limit and help them pave the superhighway to a great entitlement society,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. Procedurally, the House took a single vote Tuesday that had the effect of passing the Senate bill. The measure passed by a party-line vote of 219-206. The present standoff over the debt ceiling eased when Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., agreed to help pass the short-term increase. But he insists he won’t do so again. In a letter sent Friday to Biden, McConnell said Democrats will have to handle the next debt-limit increase on their own using the same process they have tried to use to pass Biden’s massive social spending and environment plan. Reconciliation allows legislation to pass the Senate with 51 votes rather than the 60 that’s typically required. In the 50-50 split Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris gives Democrats the majority with her tiebreaking vote. Lawmakers from both parties have used the debt ceiling votes as leverage for other priorities. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatened to vote against raising the debt ceiling when President Donald Trump was in office, saying she had no intention of supporting lifting the debt ceiling to enable Republicans to give another tax break to the rich. And Republicans in 2011 managed to coerce President Barack Obama into accepting about $2 trillion in deficit cuts as a condition for increasing the debt limit — though lawmakers later rolled back some of those cuts. Pelosi told reporters Tuesday that over the years, Republicans and Democrats have voted against lifting the debt ceiling, “but never to the extent of jeopardizing it.” Pelosi offered her hope that Congress would lift the debt ceiling in a bipartisan way this December because of the stakes involved. But she also floated a bill sponsored by Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., that would transfer the duty of raising the debt limit away from Congress and vest it with the Treasury secretary, saying, “I think it has merit.” In his focus on the debt limit, McConnell has tried to link Biden’s big federal government spending boost with the nation’s rising debt load, even though they are separate and the debt ceiling will have to be increased or suspended regardless of whether Biden’s $3.5 trillion plan makes it into law. “Your lieutenants on Capitol Hill now have the time they claimed they lacked to address the debt ceiling through standalone reconciliation and all the tools to do it,” McConnell said in a letter to the president. “They cannot invent another crisis and ask for my help.” McConnell was one of 11 Republicans who sided with Democrats to advance the debt ceiling reprieve to a final vote. Subsequently, McConnell and his GOP colleagues voted against final passage. The debate over the debt ceiling has at times gotten personal. McConnell last week suggested that Democrats were playing “Russian roulette” with the economy because they had not dealt with the debt ceiling through the process he had insisted upon. He called out Pelosi for traveling to Europe last week. “I can only presume she hopes the full faith and credit of the United States will get sorted out,” McConnell said. Pelosi did not let the shot pass. “Russian roulette from Moscow Mitch. Interesting,” she said. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Tuesday’s vote marked the 50th time dating back to President Ronald Reagan that he has voted on extending the debt limit. “Nobody has clean hands when it comes to the debt limit,” he said. Because the Senate bill only allowed for a stopgap extension, Hoyer called it a “lousy deal.” “And then we’re going to play this game one more time, a despicable and irresponsible act for adults who know better,” Hoyer said. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said he wanted to “thank” Hoyer for sharing that he had previously voted for raising the debt ceiling 49 times. “When he came into this body, the debt was about a trillion dollars,” Roy said. “Thank you, I guess, on behalf of the people of America who are staring at 28-and-a-half trillion dollars of debt.” The current debt ceiling is $28.4 trillion. Both parties have contributed to that load with decisions that have left the government rarely operating in the black. The calamitous ramifications of default are why lawmakers have been able to reach a compromise to lift or suspend the debt cap some 18 times since 2002, often after frequent rounds of brinkmanship. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Congress passes bill to avert partial government shutdown
With only hours to spare, Congress passed legislation to avoid a partial federal shutdown and keep the government funded through December 3 and sent the bill to President Joe Biden. The back-to-back votes by the Senate and then the House will help avert one crisis but delays another as the political parties dig in on a dispute over how to raise the government’s borrowing cap before the United States risks a potentially catastrophic default. The House approved the short-term funding measure by a 254-175 vote not long after Senate passage in a 65-35 vote. A large majority of Republicans in both chambers voted against it. The legislation was needed to keep the government running once the current budget year ended at midnight Thursday. Passage will buy lawmakers more time to craft the spending measures that will fund federal agencies and the programs they administer. The work to keep the government open and running served as the backdrop during a chaotic day for Democrats as they struggled to get Biden’s top domestic priorities over the finish line, including a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill at risk of stalling in the House. “It is a glimmer of hope as we go through many, many other activities,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. With their energy focused on Biden’s agenda, Democrats backed down from a showdown over the debt limit in the government funding bill, deciding to uncouple the borrowing ceiling at the insistence of Republicans. If that cap is not raised by October 18, the U.S. probably will face a financial crisis and economic recession, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said. Republicans say Democrats have the votes to raise the debt limit on their own, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is insisting they do so. The short-term spending legislation will also provide about $28.6 billion in disaster relief for those recovering from Hurricane Ida and other natural disasters. Some $10 billion of that money will help farmers cover crop losses from drought, wildfires, and hurricanes. An additional $6.3 billion will help support the resettlement of Afghanistan evacuees from the 20-year war between the U.S. and the Taliban. “This is a good outcome, one I’m happy we are getting done,” Schumer said. “With so many things to take care of in Washington, the last thing the American people need is for the government to grind to a halt.” Once the government is funded, albeit temporarily, Democrats will turn their full attention to the need to raise the limit on federal borrowing, which now stands at $28.4 trillion. The U.S. has never defaulted on its debts in the modern era, and historically, both parties have voted to raise the limit. Democrats joined the Republican Senate majority in doing so three times during Donald Trump’s presidency. This time Democrats wanted to take care of both priorities in one bill, but Senate Republicans blocked that effort Monday. Raising or suspending the debt limit allows the federal government to pay obligations already incurred. It does not authorize new spending. McConnell has argued that Democrats should pass a debt limit extension with the same budgetary tools they are using to try to pass a $3.5 trillion effort to expand social safety net programs and tackle climate change. He reiterated that warning as the Senate opened on Thursday, even as Democrats have labeled that option a “nonstarter.” “We’re able to fund the government today because the majority accepted reality. The same thing will need to happen on the debt limit next week,” McConnell said. House Democrats pushed through a stand-alone bill late Wednesday that would suspend the debt limit until December 2022. Schumer said he would bring the measure to the Senate floor, but the bill is almost certain to be blocked by a Republican filibuster. The arguments made in both chambers about the debt ceiling have followed similar themes. “You are more interested in punishing Democrats than preserving our credit, and that is something I’m having a real tough time getting my head around,” House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told Republicans. “The idea of not paying bills just because we don’t like (Biden’s) policies is the wrong way to go.” Undaunted, Republicans argued that Democrats have chosen to ram through their political priorities on their own and thus are responsible for raising the debt limit on their own. “So long as the Democratic majority continues to insist on spending money hand over fist, Republicans will refuse to help them lift the debt ceiling,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. The Treasury has taken steps to preserve cash, but once it runs out, it will be forced to rely on incoming revenue to pay its obligations. That would likely mean delays in payments to Social Security recipients, veterans, and government workers, including military personnel. The Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, projects that the federal government would be unable to meet about 40% of payments due in the several weeks that follow. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Justin Branum: The 2020 Tokyo Olympics showed our resiliency, allowing the 2022 Beijing Olympics to go as scheduled would be a denial of human rights
The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, although held a year later than originally scheduled, showcased a level of perseverance that had never before existed on the world stage. Despite Tokyo being in a state of emergency and under a quasi-lockdown for the duration of the games due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapidly spreading Delta variant, the games went on as smoothly as one could imagine, given the circumstances. Only 29 out of the over 11,000 athletes were forced out of the games due to a positive COVID-19 test, a number far lower than what organizers projected. The games provided us with many memorable moments, such as Simone Biles bringing her mental health issues to the forefront and showing the world that “it’s OK to not be OK,” Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel leading Team USA’s continued dominance in the pool, and Alyson Felix overcoming a traumatic pregnancy to become the most decorated American Track & Field Olympian of all-time. Under most circumstances, we would have a roughly 18-month wait for the Winter Olympics, but due to the postponement of the Tokyo Games, the 2022 Beijing Olympics are set to begin in under 200 days. It is in this period where we must decide just how far we are willing to go in the protection of human rights. The proverbial elephant in the room surrounding the 2022 event is the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province at the hands of the increasingly powerful Chinese Communist Party. The treatment, categorized as a genocide by both former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has included rape, forced labor, indoctrination, forced abortion, and sterilization. As a result, a bipartisan coalition including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), Chair of the House Rules Committee Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (R) have called for a boycott of the games over China’s treatment of the Uyghurs. Calls in favor of boycotting the games have not only stemmed from China’s treatment of the Uyghurs but also from China’s shady actions in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and a rise in questions regarding the origin of the virus. Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Ratcliffe (R) called for a boycott of the games due to his belief that China covered up the origins of the virus after it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A report recently released by the House Foreign Affairs Committee GOP lends credence to Ratcliffe’s claim, coming to the conclusion that COVID-19 likely leaked from the laboratory. The report also notes that a number of athletes from Western countries returned home from the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan in October of 2019 with symptoms one would now associate with COVID-19. These athletes’ infections fell nearly two months before the first COVID-19 infection was reported to the World Health Organization by the Chinese Communist Party. Fittingly, this event was the last time China hosted a major international athletics competition. With the introduction of numerous bipartisan bills calling for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in both chambers of Congress, it is clear that there is a significant appetite for taking action related to the games. While a boycott is the most popular call surrounding the games, history has shown that a boycott of the games does not always have the intended consequences. First, politicians and the federal government have no formal decision in whether the United States boycotts the Olympics—that decision lies solely in the hands of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC). In 1979, President Jimmy Carter launched an intense pressure campaign on the USOPC to boycott the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The issue quickly became domestic political fodder in the United States, becoming a contentious issue in the ongoing 1980 Republican Presidential Primary with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush both taking mixed stances on the issue while arguing that a USOPC refusal to boycott the games would be a sign of Carter’s weak leadership. The USOPC eventually endorsed a boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games and was joined by sixty-four other countries, including China, in not attending the games. The boycott ended with no change regarding the Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan—they would remain in the nation until 1989. The Soviets suffered minimal national embarrassment, and the games still went on with eighty nations participating. While the Soviets suffered little, the would-be Olympians of the boycotting nations suffered significantly. Statistically, nearly 75% of Olympians only participate in one Olympic Games, leading many to see their one opportunity to live out their dreams crushed in an instant by the boycott. A 2020 documentary from the Washington Post detailed the heartbreaking stories of the “invisible Olympians” who likely would have made up Team USA at the 1980 Olympic Games. With the failure of the United States’ only previous boycott of an Olympic Games, it is clear that a similar boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games would likely meet a similar fate. A significant number of nations would likely still attend the games, allowing for the Chinese Communist Party to still conduct a full slate of Olympic events and festivities. With rising COVID-19 cases across the globe, uncertainty over future variants, questions surrounding China’s handling of the early days of the pandemic, and China’s horrendous treatment of the Uyghur Muslims, it is clear that the 2022 Olympics must be relocated and reorganized into a multi-site and multi-national event. Planning and carrying out an Olympic Games is a tremendous task that takes over a decade, as evidenced by the ongoing planning of the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, Australia. With less than 200 days until the scheduled start of the games, finding a location with the suitable facilities to plan and host an Olympic Games on the fly, in the middle of a pandemic, is impossible. Asking a handful of nations across
By slimmest of margins, Senate takes up $1.9T relief bill
The Senate voted by the slimmest of margins Thursday to begin debating a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill after Democrats made eleventh-hour changes aimed at ensuring they could pull President Joe Biden’s top legislative priority through the precariously divided chamber. Democrats were hoping for Senate approval of the package before next week, in time for the House to sign off and get the measure to Biden quickly. They were encountering opposition from Republicans arguing that the measure’s massive price tag ignored promising signs that the pandemic and wounded economy were turning around. Democratic leaders made over a dozen late additions to their package, reflecting their need to cement unanimous support from all their senators — plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote — to succeed in the 50-50 chamber. It’s widely expected the Senate will approve the bill and the House will whisk it to Biden for his signature by mid-March, handing him a crucial early legislative victory. The Senate’s 51-50 vote to start debating the package, with Harris pushing Democrats over the top, underscored how they were navigating the package through Congress with virtually no margin for error. In the House, their majority is a scrawny 10 votes. The bill, aimed at battling the killer virus and nursing the staggering economy back to health, will provide direct payments of up to $1,400 to most Americans. There’s also money for COVID-19 vaccines and testing, aid to state and local governments, help for schools and the airline industry, tax breaks for lower-earners and families with children, and subsidies for health insurance. “We are not going to be timid in the face of a great challenge,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The new provisions offered items appealing to all manner of Democrats. Progressives got money boosting feeding programs, federal subsidies for health care for workers who lose jobs, tax-free student loans, and money for public broadcasting and consumer protection investigations. Moderates won funds for rural health care, language assuring minimum amounts of money for smaller states, and a prohibition on states receiving aid using the windfalls to cut taxes. And for everyone, there was money for infrastructure, cultural venues, start-up companies, and afterschool programs. Even with the late revisions, there was a good chance lawmakers will make yet another one and vote to pare back the bill’s $400 weekly emergency unemployment benefits to $300. That potential change could also extend those emergency payments another month, through September. It was described by aides and a lobbyist who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations. Biden and Senate leaders had agreed Wednesday to retain the $400 weekly jobless payments included in the version of the relief bill the House approved Saturday. The reduction to $300 — which seemed likely to occur once the Senate begins a “vote-a-rama” on scores of amendments later this week — seemed to reflect a need to secure support from moderate Democrats. It also left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the task of keeping her chamber’s numerous progressives on board. Liberals already suffered a blow when their No. 1 priority — a federal minimum wage increase to $15 hourly that was included in the House package — was booted from the bill in the Senate for violating the chamber’s rules and for lack of moderates’ support. In another bargain that satisfied moderates, Biden and Senate Democrats agreed Wednesday to tighten eligibility for the direct checks to individuals. The new provision completely phases out the $1,400 payments for individuals earning at least $80,000 and couples making $160,000, well lower than the original ceilings. “My hope is they don’t screw around with it too much,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said of the Senate in an interview. “If they do there could be some problems.” Congress wants to send the bill to Biden before March 14, when a previous round of emergency benefits for people tossed out of work by the pandemic expires. As soon as the Senate began considering the bill, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., forced the chamber’s clerks to begin reading the entire 628-page measure aloud. He was the only senator at his desk for most of the night, appearing to follow along silently, one sheet at a time. As the night dragged on, he stood every so often and paced the perimeter of the chamber, reading as he walked. He said earlier that he was doing it to “shine the light on this abusive and obscene amount of money.” Schumer said Johnson would “accomplish little more than a few sore throats for the Senate clerks.” Asked about GOP delays, Biden told reporters he’s talked to Republican lawmakers and added, “We’re keeping everybody informed.” Biden met last month with Republican senators who offered a plan one-third the size of Democrats’ proposal, and there have been no signs since of serious talks. Johnson’s move, which would take many hours to complete, pointed to a larger GOP argument: Democrats were ramming an overpriced bill through that disregarded that growing numbers of vaccinations and other signs suggesting the country’s pandemic ordeal is beginning to ease. “Instead of heading into a dark tunnel, we’re accelerating out of it,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The economic recovery began to stall late last year as the virus surged, causing a shortfall in hiring in recent months. Employers added just 49,000 jobs in January and cut 227,000 jobs in December. Economists estimate that the February employment report being released Friday will show gains of 175,000, not nearly enough to swiftly recover the nearly 10 million jobs lost to the pandemic-induced recession. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates economic growth will exceed 4% this year without Biden’s rescue package. Republicans cite that as evidence the economy is pointed upward, but Democrats say a strong economic stimulus is still needed to prevent a relapse. “It’s a crisis that is still very much with us, and it is deadly, deadly serious,” Schumer said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump impeached after Capitol riot in historic second charge
President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a historic second time Wednesday, charged with “incitement of insurrection” over the deadly mob siege of the Capitol in a swift and stunning collapse of his final days in office. With the Capitol secured by armed National Guard troops inside and out, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump. The proceedings moved at lightning speed, with lawmakers voting just one week after violent pro-Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol after the president’s calls for them to “fight like hell” against the election results. Ten Republicans fled Trump, joining Democrats who said he needed to be held accountable and warned ominously of a “clear and present danger” if Congress should leave him unchecked before Democrat Joe Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20. Trump is the only U.S. president to be twice impeached. It was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in modern times, more so than against Bill Clinton in 1998. The Capitol insurrection stunned and angered lawmakers, who were sent scrambling for safety as the mob descended, and it revealed the fragility of the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of power. The riot also forced a reckoning among some Republicans, who have stood by Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked Abraham Lincoln and the Bible, imploring lawmakers to uphold their oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign “and domestic.” She said of Trump: “He must go, he is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.” Holed up at the White House, watching the proceedings on TV, Trump took no responsibility for the bloody riot seen around the world, but issued a statement urging “NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind” to disrupt Biden’s ascension to the White House. In the face of the accusations against him and with the FBI warning of more violence, Trump said, “That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers.” Trump was first impeached by the House in 2019 over his dealings with Ukraine, but the Senate voted in 2020 acquit. He is the first to be impeached twice. None has been convicted by the Senate, but Republicans said Wednesday that could change in the rapidly shifting political environment as officeholders, donors, big business and others peel away from the defeated president. The soonest Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell would start an impeachment trial is next Tuesday, the day before Trump is already set to leave the White House, McConnell’s office said. The legislation is also intended to prevent Trump from ever running again. McConnell believes Trump committed impeachable offenses and considers the Democrats’ impeachment drive an opportunity to reduce the divisive, chaotic president’s hold on the GOP, a Republican strategist told The Associated Press on Wednesday. McConnell told major donors over the weekend that he was through with Trump, said the strategist, who demanded anonymity to describe McConnell’s conversations. In a note to colleagues Wednesday, McConnell said he had “not made a final decision on how I will vote.” Unlike his first time, Trump faces this impeachment as a weakened leader, having lost his own reelection as well as the Senate Republican majority. Even Trump ally Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, shifted his position and said Wednesday the president bears responsibility for the horrifying day at the Capitol. In making a case for the “high crimes and misdemeanors” demanded in the Constitution, the four-page impeachment resolution approved Wednesday relies on Trump’s own incendiary rhetoric and the falsehoods he spread about Biden’s election victory, including at a rally near the White House on the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A Capitol Police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies. The riot delayed the tally of Electoral College votes which was the last step in finalizing Biden’s victory. Ten Republican lawmakers, including third-ranking House GOP leader Liz Cheney of Wyoming, voted to impeach Trump, cleaving the Republican leadership, and the party itself. Cheney, whose father is the former Republican vice president, said of Trump’s actions summoning the mob that “there has never been a greater betrayal by a President” of his office. Trump was said to be livid with perceived disloyalty from McConnell and Cheney. With the team around Trump hollowed out and his Twitter account silenced by the social media company, the president was deeply frustrated that he could not hit back, according to White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. From the White House, Trump leaned on Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to push Republican senators to resist, while chief of staff Mark Meadows called some of his former colleagues on Capitol Hill. The president’s sturdy popularity with the GOP lawmakers’ constituents still had some sway, and most House Republicans voted not to impeach. Security was exceptionally tight at the Capitol, with tall fences around the complex. Metal-detector screenings were required for lawmakers entering the House chamber, where a week earlier lawmakers huddled inside as police, guns drawn, barricade the door from rioters. “We are debating this historic measure at a crime scene,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. During the debate, some Republicans repeated the falsehoods spread by Trump about the election and argued that the president has been treated unfairly by Democrats from the day he took office. Other Republicans argued the impeachment was a rushed sham and complained about a double standard applied to his supporters but not to the liberal left. Some simply appealed for the nation to move on. Rep. Tom McClintock of California said, “Every movement has a lunatic fringe.” Yet Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. and others recounted the harrowing
House passes $900 billion COVID relief, catchall measure
The House easily passed a $900 billion pandemic relief package Monday night that would finally deliver long-sought cash to businesses and individuals and resources to vaccinate a nation confronting a frightening surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Lawmakers tacked on a $1.4 trillion catchall spending bill and thousands of pages of other end-of-session business in a massive bundle of bipartisan legislation as Capitol Hill prepared to close the books on the year. The lopsided 359-53 vote was a bipartisan coda to months of partisanship and politicking as lawmakers wrangled over the relief question, a logjam that broke after President-elect Joe Biden urged his party to accept a compromise with top Republicans that is smaller than many Democrats would have liked. The relief package, unveiled Monday afternoon, sped through the House in a matter of hours. A Senate vote that would send the bill to President Donald Trump appeared likely to follow soon. The bill combines coronavirus-fighting funds with financial relief for individuals and businesses. It would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit and a $600 direct stimulus payment to most Americans, along with a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants, and theaters and money for schools, health care providers, and renters facing eviction. The 5,593-page legislation — by far the longest bill ever — came together Sunday after months of battling, posturing and postelection negotiating that reined in a number of Democratic demands as the end of the congressional session approached. President-elect Joe Biden was eager for a deal to deliver long-awaited help to suffering people and a boost to the economy, even though it was less than half the size that Democrats wanted in the fall. “This deal is not everything I want — not by a long shot,” said Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., a longstanding voice in the party’s old-school liberal wing. “The choice before us is simple. It’s about whether we help families or not. It’s about whether we help small businesses and restaurants or not. It’s about whether we boost (food stamp) benefits and strengthen anti-hunger programs or not. And whether we help those dealing with a job loss or not. To me, this is not a tough call.” The Senate, meanwhile, was also on track to pass a one-week stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown at midnight and give Trump time to sign the sweeping legislation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a key negotiator, said on CNBC Monday morning that the direct payments would begin arriving in bank accounts next week. Democrats promised more aid to come once Biden takes office, but Republicans were signaling a wait-and-see approach. The measure would fund the government through September, wrapping a year’s worth of action on annual spending bills into a single package that never saw Senate committee or floor debate. The legislation followed a tortured path. Democrats played hardball up until Election Day, amid accusations that they wanted to deny Trump a victory that might help him prevail. Democrats denied that, but their demands indeed became more realistic after Trump’s loss and as Biden made it clear that half a loaf was better than none. The final bill bore ample resemblance to a $1 trillion package put together by Senate Republican leaders in July, a proposal that at the time was scoffed at by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as way too little. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took a victory lap after blocking far more ambitious legislation from reaching the Senate floor. He said the pragmatic approach of Biden was key. “A few days ago, with a new president-elect of their own party, everything changed. Democrats suddenly came around to our position that we should find consensus, make law where we agree, and get urgent help out the door,” McConnell said. On direct payments, the bill provides $600 to individuals making up to $75,000 per year and $1,200 to couples making up to $150,000, with payments phased out for higher incomes. An additional $600 payment will be made per dependent child, similar to the last round of relief payments in the spring. The $300 per week bonus jobless benefit was half the supplemental federal unemployment benefit provided under the $1.8 billion CARES Act in March. That more generous benefit and would be limited to 11 weeks instead of 16 weeks. The direct $600 stimulus payment was also half the March payment. The CARES Act was credited with keeping the economy from falling off a cliff during widespread lockdowns in the spring, but Republicans controlling the Senate cited debt concerns in pushing against Democratic demands. “Anyone who thinks this bill is enough hasn’t heard the desperation in the voices of their constituents, has not looked into the eyes of the small-business owner on the brink of ruin,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, a lifelong New Yorker who pushed hard for money helping his city’s transit systems, renters, theaters and restaurants. Progress came after a bipartisan group of pragmatists and moderates devised a $908 billion plan that built a middle-ground position that the top four leaders of Congress — the GOP and Democratic leaders of both the House and Senate — used as the basis for their talks. The lawmakers urged leaders on both sides to back off of hardline positions. “At times we felt like we were in the wilderness because people on all sides of the aisle didn’t want to give, in order to give the other side a win,” said freshman Rep. Elssa Slotkin, D-Mich. “And it was gross to watch, frankly.” Republicans were most intent on reviving the Paycheck Protection Program with $284 billion, which would cover a second round of PPP grants to especially hard-hit businesses. Democrats won set-asides for low-income and minority communities. The sweeping bill also contains $25 billion in rental assistance, $15 billion for theaters and other live venues, $82 billion for local schools, colleges, and universities, and $10 billion for child care. The governmentwide appropriations bill was likely
Bradley Byrne: After the election: One nation under God
I’ll never forget sitting in the US House Chamber in January of 2017, watching the counting of the Electoral College votes from the 2016 presidential election. Under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, the sitting Vice President opens and counts the votes as submitted and certified by the electors chosen from each state, and the Vice President must do so “in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives.” Because Inauguration Day was still several days away, the sitting Vice President was Joe Biden, and as a member of the House, I was entitled to be there. Procedurally, any Representative or Senator can object to any state’s electoral college votes, but at least one member from the other house must agree with the objection before it can be considered. Alabama was the first state up, and Jim McGovern, a very liberal Democrat member from Massachusetts who served on the Rules Committee with me, stood up and objected because the Russians supposedly interfered with our vote for Donald Trump. He also made a blatantly false allegation that our state violated the Voting Rights Act and suppressed thousands of votes. No Senator agreed with him, and Vice President Biden ruled the objections out of order, which kept me from having to argue against McGovern’s silly and frankly slanderous objections. The count went on, and as every Trump state’s votes came up, a Democrat House member would stand up and object, but because no senator agreed with the objections, Biden would rule them out of order. Finally, after several of these, Biden leaned into the microphone and said firmly to his fellow Democrats, “it’s over.” Though they hated the result, he was saying, the Constitution calls for the person with the most electoral votes to be President. And that person was Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton. This has been an extraordinary year, with the pandemic, a record economic downturn and recovery, riots and violence, and an unprecedented number of hurricanes. It will be an extraordinary election, too, as record numbers of people have already voted in many states, but their votes can’t be counted until election day, and many of those states’ election processes require days to count all those votes. There will also be challenges to the counting of some, perhaps many, ballots because they weren’t filled in or submitted properly. So, we aren’t likely to know the result on Election Day. We didn’t know the result of the 2000 election until December, weeks after the election, and that took an extraordinary decision by the Supreme Court to resolve it in favor of George W. Bush. The Twelfth Amendment was passed and ratified because the 1800 presidential election resulted in an electoral college tie between Thomas Jefferson and his supposed running mate Aaron Burr. That threw the election into the House of Representatives which took 36 ballots to finally make Jefferson the president, three months after the election. In both cases, the nation moved on and accomplished great things. Though this year’s election isn’t likely to be over as quickly as we are used to, all of us should be patient and trust in our Constitution and the institutions which have served us so well for over 230 years. There will be plenty of eyes on the process, and nothing inappropriate is going to go unnoticed. Our intelligence and law enforcement communities have been closely monitoring foreign actors and will continue to do so after the election. Be careful of the information you receive during and after the election because we know there’s a lot of truly fake “news” out there, designed to divide us as a nation. And when we have a result, if your candidate doesn’t win, let’s not have a replay of 2016 when Democrats refused to accept the result, who wouldn’t let it be “over” and shamefully called themselves the “resistance,” a slap in the face of the Constitution and our tradition of peaceful transfer of power. We’ve wasted too much time in Washington over the Mueller report and a failed impeachment effort, attempting to reverse the 2016 election. And we’ve had too much violence this year – we don’t need more due to the election. If your candidate loses, the appropriate response is to be the loyal opposition – loyal to our nation and its Constitution but opposed to the policies of the victorious party. Remember, in American politics, today’s loser is often tomorrow’s winner. Our greatest enemy isn’t a foreign nation but our internal division, driven by a hyper-partisan news media and entertainment industry ready to exploit every fault line in our country and craven before the far worse fault lines of countries where that industry makes a lot of money. Let’s ignore the media and entertainment industry and return to what we learned in school about the traditional values which make us great. As a unified nation there is nothing we can’t do, no problem or issue we can’t solve. We are one nation under God. Let’s keep it that way. Congressman Bradley Byrne currently represents Alabama’s 1st congressional district.
