Tag: congress

Why People Are Upset: It Took Congress 9 Months to Send $600 But Only 6 Days to Impeach Trump

Instead of working on programs to safely reopen the country, help those who’ve lost their jobs and homes during the pandemic, and find solutions to problems faced by tens of millions of Americans — Congress impeached a man, who in less than a week, will no longer be the president.

This move is insulting and egregious for two reasons. The first one is obvious and that there are far more important things to be working on than holding impeachment proceedings when a much less resource consuming criminal investigation could happen in the days after Trump leaves office. The second reason is that Trump should have been impeached years ago.

Over the last four years, Trump has given Congress multiple substantial reasons for impeachment, but they agreed with him on most of it, so they left it alone.

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‘Out of touch with reality’: Tulsi Gabbard rips fellow Democrats after Congress imposes new rules on gendered language

US Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is calling out her party for pushing through a new code of conduct that essentially denies women exist by requiring gender-neutral language in Congressional rules.

“It’s the height of hypocrisy for people who claim to be the champions of rights for women to deny the very biological existence of women,” Gabbard said on Monday night in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

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‘Super Spreader’ Speakership Election: Nancy Pelosi Allows Democrats to Break Quarantine to Help Secure Another Term

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is turning the House of Representatives into a potential coronavirus hotspot, allowing Democrats to break quarantine to vote in the speakership election as she faces a tough battle for another term atop the chamber.

At least three members, according to congressional reporter John Bresnahan, are breaking quarantine to attend swearing-in ceremonies and the all-important speakership election Sunday. Two of them are Democrats, he revealed, and one is a Republican. In addition to those three comes Rep. Gwen Moore (D-FL), attending the vote to back Pelosi after testing positive for the deadly virus just six days ago.

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Proposed House Rules Seek To Erase Gendered-Terms Such As ‘Father’, ‘Mother’, ‘Son’, & ‘Daughter’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern (D-Mass.) announced on Friday that the rules package includes changes that would “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral.”

A separate announcement from McGovern (pdf) said that the Democratic rules package will make “Changes [to] pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral or removes references to gender, as appropriate, to ensure we are inclusive of all Members, Delegates, Resident Commissioners and their families—including those who are nonbinary.”

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AMERICA WANTS MARIJUANA REFORM. CONGRESS SHOULDN’T STAND IN THE WAY.

Marijuana legalization was a clear winner in the November election, as one in three Americans will now live in a state with legal marijuana. In red states like Montana and South Dakota; swing states like Arizona; and blue states like New Jersey, marijuana legalization ballot measures were extremely successful, in many cases at levels approaching supermajorities. In every single one of these states–from red to blue, east to west, urban to rural–marijuana legalization far outperformed the states’ Democratic tickets. 

In my state of California, voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 64 in 2016, which legalized marijuana use. Following its passage, marijuana arrests decreased by 56%, demonstrating the power decriminalization has to curb mass incarceration.

None of this should come as a surprise. We knew the popularity of marijuana legalization and the MORE Act long before November 3rd. Support for these policies has been steadily rising since the 1970s. This summer, polling from Data for Progress and the Justice Collaborative Institute found that when asked about its specific provisions, 59 percent of voters, including a majority of Republicans, support the MORE Act.

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Tens of million in CARES Act loans went to the families of just 28 Congresspeople

A new analysis from Sludge Magazine shows that Washington nepotism is just as unsurprisingly nepotistic and grossly disappointing as ever:

18 congressional Republicans and one Libertarian have received $21.7 million for 38 businesses with which they are associated. Nine Democrats received $6.1 million for 11 of their own businesses. An additional roughly $54 million went to nonprofits, think tanks and policy institutes, congressional caucuses, and higher education institutions tied to members of both parties.

[…]

• Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), net worth $77 million, received a $135,800 loan for his Geniecast, LLC.

• Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), net worth $73.9 million and the fourth-richest member of Congress, received $2.8 million in loans for four of his 27 companies.

• Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), net worth $60.9 million, received a loan of $1,070,000 for his KTAK Corporation. Hern, who owns 97 percent of the company, estimated its value at between $5 and $25 million last year.

• Norman, net worth $43.4 million, received $306,520 for four of his 20 companies.

• Mitch McConnell and wife Elaine Chao, with a combined net worth of $34.4 million, are tied to a loan for the Chao-family owned Foremost Maritime Inc. of $417,700.

• Roger Williams (R-Texas), net worth $27.7, received $1,430,000 for his JRW Corporation. Last year, he valued the company at more than $50 million.

• Greg Pence, net worth $12.6 million, received a loan of $79,441 for his Pence Group, LLC, which he valued on his financial disclosure as worth between $5 and $25 million.

• T.J. Cox (D-Calif.), net worth $11.8 million, received $609,825 for two of his 26 businesses.

• Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), net worth $10.9 million, is tied to a loan of $1,100,000.00 that went to her husband’s law firm, Lowey Dannenberg P.C.

• Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), net worth $10.4 million, received $974,100 for four of his car dealerships.

• Ralph Abraham (R-La.), net worth $4.8 million, received loans of $38,300 for two of his four companies.

• Earl Blumenaeur (D-Ore.), net worth $4.5 million, received $432,734 for his two companies.

• Vicki Hartzler (R-Mo.), net worth $3.8 million, is tied to $451,200 for her husband’s Heartland Tractor Company, which she valued at between $1 and $5 million and from which he claimed as much as $1 million in income last year.

• Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), net worth $3.7 million, received $988,700 for his two family plumbing businesses.

While this kind of nepotistic corruption is always bipartisan, it is frustrating to note that Republicans were twice as likely to partake in such behavior. And of course, many of these same people also voted against giving more than $600 to citizens in the most recent round of COVID relief efforts, even after voting to provide immense relief to big businesses instead of smaller mom-and-pop shops.

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