Tag: republicans

GOP Lawmaker Says Hungry People Don’t Exist Because He’s Never Met One

As the Minnesota state senate debated a bill meant to provide more free school meals to kids living in poverty, one Republican senator’s rationale for voting against it was simple: those kids don’t exist.

While many of his GOP colleagues argued against the cost of Senate Bill 12—$200 million annually—State Sen. Steve Drazkowski cast doubt on the idea that hungry families exist in his state at all.

“I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat,” State Sen. Steve Drazkowski said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “We need to make sure, if we’re going to develop more food welfare programs, and force them on the kids and families in the state of Minnesota, we got to make sure that they’re not at least riddled with the type of fraud that basically is stealing from the people of Minnesota.”

Drazkowski, who served the state House for 13 years prior to being elected to the Senate in 2022, called the measure “pure socialism” and part of the state’s attempt to control what kids eat. He mocked the idea of hungry kids, adding that the term “hunger” is relative.

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Republican Lt. Gov. Vows to Keep Thirsting Over Queer Instagram Nudes

A PERSON IS always wise to remember that Instagram likes and comments are public. But a 79-year-old man who likes what he sees is not always disposed to restrain himself, and it looks as though Tennessee Lt. Governor Randy McNally is one such fellow.

As the Tennessee Holler first reported on Wednesday, McNally has for some time been a devoted fan of Franklyn McClur, a 20-year-old gay man who grew up in Knoxville and aspires to move to Los Angeles to make it in show business. McClur’s Instagram photos and captions are often suggestive in nature; he shows off his body, sometimes posing fully nude, and wears makeup. All pretty standard as far as the app goes. What’s unusual is that McNally has for months used his own verified account to unabashedly compliment McClur’s thirst traps — this while his state moves to criminalize drag shows and gender-affirming care for transgender children as part of the nationwide Republican push for laws targeting the LGBTQ community.

“Finn, you can turn a rainy day into rainbows and sunshine!” McNally wrote, using McClur’s nickname, on a January photo in which the younger man shows off his butt in tight-fitting underwear. In a follow-up comment, he appended heart and flame emojis. Elsewhere, McNally has complimented McClur’s skimpy outfits and told him, “You need to be on dancing with the stars.” On a nude photo which McClur captioned “I Love being naked.. the Garden of Eden, is My Vibe. I Understand God,” McNally replied, “Great picture, Finn! Best wishes for continued health and happiness.”

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Florida bill would require bloggers who write about governor to register with the state

Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.

If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published.

For blog posts that “concern an elected member of the legislature” or “an officer of the executive branch,” monthly reports must disclose the amount of compensation received for the coverage, rounded to the nearest $10 value.

If compensation is paid for a series of posts or for a specific amount of time, the blogger would be required to disclose the total amount to be received, upon publication of the first post in said series or timeframe.

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Some US states want to bring back child labor instead of giving adult workers better pay

Amid an ongoing push for higher wages by US workers, including union-building efforts and a national railway strike that was averted last December, some states are finding ways to undercut the working class.

One method, as Business Insider reports, is for the US to start allowing children aged 14-17 into the workforce. The federal government has said this practice is already increasing in an illicit fashion, too. 

In the last month, Republican lawmakers in Iowa and Minnesota have introduced legislation that would allow exceptions to existing child labor regulations. This is aimed at ameliorating the ongoing labor shortage in the US, which is also plaguing other countries, predominantly in the West.

According to Business Insider, the State of Minnesota “lost 90,000 workers alone during the pandemic, according to state demographers, making it one of the tightest labor markets in the country. Iowa’s not far behind with roughly 75,000 open jobs in December.” The proposed bills in these states would allow children to work more hours and “protect employers from liabilities due to sickness or accidents,” which could help specific industries like construction and meatpacking that are being hit hard in these states.

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On target? Democrats AND Republicans write to Biden demanding he send F-16 jets to Ukraine so its troops can dominate Russia ahead of Putin’s spring offensive

A bipartisan group of House members wrote to President Biden this week to urge him to send fighter jets to Ukraine in a move that would escalate U.S. involvement in the nation’s war with Ukraine. 

Five House members said modern jets like the F-16 ‘could prove decisive for control of Ukrainian airspace this year.’ Kyiv has long urged the U.S. to provide fighter jets, but President Biden weeks ago told reporters he would not.

The letter was led by Maine Democrat Rep. Jared Golden, with GOP Reps. Tony Gonzales, Texas, and Mike Gallagher, Wis., and Democratic Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, Pa., and Jason Crow, Colo., signing on. All five have military experience. 

The bipartisan group first praised Biden for his continued support for Ukraine, before asking him to send the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft or similar fourth-generation aircraft ‘as soon as possible.’ 

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Congressional Republicans Urge Biden to Provide More Military Funding to Taiwan

The authors of the new letter to Biden reasoned that arming and equipping Taiwan “to make it a stronger and more capable partner” would be an improvement for the “national and economic security” of the United States.

Republican members of the US Congress’ foreign relations and defense committees have penned a letter to US President Joe Biden asking him to ramp up military aid to Taiwan, according to a US media outlet familiar with the contents of the missive.

The letter was reportedly authored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jim Risch and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, as well as Senator Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers, Republican leaders of the Senate and House armed service committees, respectively.

“Using every authority, we must arm and equip Taiwan to make it a stronger and more capable partner — which will only help the United States’ national and economic security,” the politicians declared in their letter.

They also argued that the United States “must be willing to accept the tension that comes with supporting Taiwan.”

As the media outlet points out, in December the US Congress did authorize foreign military aid financing for Taiwan – $2 billion per year – but that money comes in the form of “US-backed loans,” and the letter’s authors claim that “without FMF grants, loans are not enough to address the scale of this challenge.”

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Lawmakers Propose ‘Dream Act,’ Amnesty for 1.9 Million Illegal Immigrants

Two senators have introduced the Dream Act of 2023 seeking to provide legal status to illegal immigrants who were brought into the United States as children—a move that would provide lawful permanent residence to almost 2 million people.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, have introduced the same legislation in the last three sessions of Congress, but it failed each time.

In June 2012, the Obama administration implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which seeks to protect “Dreamers,” illegal immigrants who came to America when they were children. The Dream Act of 2023 would allow roughly 1.9 million people to receive legal status to live and work in the United States.

This number includes about 600,000 current DACA applicants. Graham suggested that strict immigration reforms must be implemented for the Dream Act to become a reality.

“While I continue to support relief for Dreamers, I hope my Democratic colleagues understand we must repair a broken border and address a tsunami of illegal immigration before that is remotely possible,” Graham said in a statement Friday.

“The Dreamers represent a class of illegal immigrants that have much public support because they were minors brought here by their parents and America has become their home,” Graham said. “To provide relief to this population, we must first convince Americans that the unending wave of illegal immigration will stop.”

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Yes, Sales Tax is Also THEFT

A group of House Republicans is supporting legislation that would replace federal income, payroll, estate, and gift taxes with a 30 percent national sales tax. The bill also eliminates the Internal Revenue Service, giving states the responsibility to collect the sales tax and send the revenue to DC.

This deputizing of states to act as federal tax collectors violates the principles of federalism, especially since the plan forces states that have chosen not to make their residents pay sales taxes create a mechanism for collecting sales tax.

A 30 percent sales tax on all goods with no exceptions and no deductions will increase taxes imposed on millions of Americans. The sales tax legislation provides a way Americans can receive a monthly “prebate” payment to help offset the cost of the sales tax. Still, many taxpayers would be paying more under the new national sales tax system.

If the sales tax becomes law, Congress may never have to increase the rate above 30 percent. This is because it can rely on the Federal Reserve to increase the sales taxes via inflation. Consequently, this inflation tax will increase the pain inflicted by the sales tax on the American people.

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Twitter Kept Entire ‘Database’ of Republican Requests to Censor Posts

WHEN THE WHITE House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.

That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Democrats and the feds to the social media company. The newly empowered Republican majority in the House of Representatives is now devoting significant resources and time to investigating this supposed “collusion” between liberal politicians and Twitter. Some Republicans even believe the release of the “Twitter Files” is the “tip of the spear” of their crusade against the alleged liberal bias of Big Tech.

But former Trump administration officials and Twitter employees tell Rolling Stone that the White House’s Teigen tweet demand was hardly an isolated incident: The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.

“It was strange to me when all of these investigations were announced because it was all about the exact same stuff that we had done [when Donald Trump was in office],” one former top aide to a senior Trump administration official tells Rolling Stone. “It was normal.”

In interviews with former Twitter personnel, onetime Trump administration officials, and other people familiar with the matter, each source recalled what could be described as a “hotline,” “tipline,” or large Twitter “database” of moderation and removal requests that was frequently pinged by the offices of powerful Democrats and Republicans alike.

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Newlywed Republican councilwoman, 30, was shot ‘SEVEN TIMES in the face as she drove her SUV outside her New Jersey home’ – as FBI investigates ‘personal attack’

FBI agents are now investigating after a Republican councilwoman was ‘shot in the face seven times’ while driving her SUV home – as Governor Phil Murphy said it was ‘not politically motivated’.

Eunice Dwumfour, 30, was shot outside of her home in Sayreville, New Jersey on Wednesday night, with friends calling it a ‘targeted and personal attack’.

According to friends, the mother-of-one was shot seven times in the face and seven times in the body.

She crashed her SUV with her slumped over the wheel, with horrified neighbors hearing multiple gunshots and then a crash.

Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and Sayreville Police are leading the investigation, with the FBI now becoming ‘involved’ in the investigation.

Dwumfour was found inside of her white Nissan SUV with multiple gunshot wounds on Samuel Circle just before 7.30pm.

She recently married a pastor who lives in Nigeria, just before Thanksgiving, and lived in the apartment with her 12-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.

Friend and Pastor Nelia Rodriguez told The Ingraham Angle that she believes the incident was a ‘personal attack’.

She added: ‘We believe it [was] very personal because she was shot seven times in the face and another seven shots were hitting everywhere else.

‘So for somebody to get so close to somebody and shoot them so many times, it has to be personal.’

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said the investigation into Dwumfour’s death is ongoing and officials have not released a motive or any information about a suspect.

There have been no arrested in the case, with officials seen searching a wooded area near her home after witnesses claimed they saw a man run off in that direction after the shooting.

Police received a tip that the murder weapon had been dumped in the area, so brought in police dogs to search the area.

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