Politics Left

Representative Al Green (D-TX) has filed his third set of impeachment articles against Donald Trump. This time, he filed the articles in response to his call for the Palestinians to be moved to a new land permanently. He called the reasons “dastardly deeds.”

He said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. and injustice in Gaza is a threat to justice in the United States of America. I rise to announce that the movement to impeach the president has begun. I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.”

Rep. Al Green is filing new impeachment articles against Trump– www.politico.com
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Rep. Al Green said Wednesday he was introducing impeachment articles against Donald Trump after the president said the U.S. would “take over” Gaza.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. and injustice in Gaza is a threat to justice in the United States of America,” Green said in a floor speech Wednesday morning. “I rise to announce that the movement to impeach the president has begun. I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.”

The Texas Democrat launched multiple longshot impeachment bids during Trump’s first term using procedural maneuvers meant to circumvent House leadership and bypass committees. Similar to his last efforts, there’s not much appetite among Democrats to impeach Trump as of yet.

Asked Wednesday about Green’s measure, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), the No. 3 House Democrat, said it wasn’t a focus for the caucus.

Democratic Senators Hit Back By Blocking Votes On Trump Nominees– www.politicususa.com
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House and Senate Democrats held a press conference outside of USAID, but they aren’t stopping there.

Two Democratic Senators have said that they will block votes on Trump’s nominees in protest of Elon Musk’s illegal takeover of USAID.

Reuters reported:

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz said on Monday he would block Senate votes on President Donald Trump’s nominees for diplomatic positions in protest over moves to close the U.S. Agency for International Development and fold it into the State Department.

….

Another Democratic senator, Chris Van Hollen, told reporters after the press conference he would also act to stall State Department nominees.

Democrats need to block all votes on Trump’s nominees. Block votes on Trump’s cabinet nominees as well.

Donald: ‘Pain’ Caused By Tariffs ‘Worth The Price That Must Be Paid’– crooksandliars.com
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A Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled, ‘The Dumbest Trade War in History’ really got under Donald’s thin-skin, so he took to Truth Social to rant against the paper while admitting that we may feel some pain from his trade war.

“The “Tariff Lobby,” headed by the Globalist, and always wrong, Wall Street Journal, is working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA,” he scribbled. “THOSE DAYS ARE OVER!”

“The USA has major deficits with Canada, Mexico, and China (and almost all countries!), owes 36 Trillion Dollars, and we’re not going to be the “Stupid Country” any longer,” It continued. “MAKE YOUR PRODUCT IN THE USA AND THERE ARE NO TARIFFS! Why should the United States lose TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN SUBSIDIZING OTHER COUNTRIES, and why should these other countries pay a small fraction of the cost of what USA citizens pay for Drugs and Pharmaceuticals, as an example?”

“THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA!” he added. “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE — AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!”

Donald Trump issues order to pause TikTok ban for 75 days– www.politifact.com
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On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to pause the TikTok ban for 75 days.

Trump’s order says the attorney general “shall not take any action to enforce the Act” passed by Congress. That will give Trump’s administration “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action.”

The attorney general, Trump wrote, will issue written guidance to apply the order.

Before the inauguration, Trump floated the idea of the United States having “a 50% ownership position in a joint venture” with TikTok. He reiterated that possibility as he signed the order. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is a privately owned company that says 60% of its owners are global investors. Its Chinese cofounders have a 20% ownership share, and its employees own 20%.

Videos on social media show LA firefighters using professional gear, not ‘women’s handbags’– www.politifact.com
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As wildfires continue to burn this week in California, with more strong winds expected, disinformation also continues to spread.

A Jan. 9 Instagram post said, referring to the Los Angeles Fire Department, “The LAFD are using women’s handbags to hold water to put out fires.”

The video shows firefighters wearing yellow jackets and pouring water into what appears to be a plastic bag with two handles before throwing the water into a smoke-filled structure.

Other Instagram posts make similar claims about the fires, which have killed at least 24 people so far.

“California firefighters are using women’s handbags to fill them with water and pour it over flames in an attempt to extinguish the ongoing wildfires,” says a Jan. 10 Instagram post.

But the firefighters are using professional gear — not “women’s handbags.”

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, recently launched a website to combat disinformation about Southern California’s wildfires.

House Republicans and Trump discuss tying California wildfire aid to debt ceiling– www.politico.com
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A group of House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump talked about tying wildfire aid to a debt ceiling increase Sunday night, as the fires spreading across huge swaths of Los Angeles are estimated to become one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

Of the nearly two dozen House Republicans who attended the Sunday dinner at Mar-a-Lago, where this option was discussed, several are caucus leaders and appropriators with major influence in upcoming budget reconciliation and government funding negotiations.

House Speaker Mike Johnson was not at the dinner, and no final decisions were made about the way forward, according to two people with direct knowledge of the private meeting, who were granted anonymity to discuss it.

Yet addressing the looming debt cliff will be one of Johnson’s biggest challenges in the coming months, especially as Trump continues to agitate for lawmakers to address it quickly. The Sunday night discussions prove Republicans are desperately looking for a plan before the nation is due to exhaust its borrowing authority in June — though Democrats and some Republicans are sure to balk at the prospect of linking disaster relief dollars to a politically charged exercise like extending the debt limit.

‘Non-starter’: California Democrats blast GOP’s fire trade– www.politico.com
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Democrats are rejecting a tentative pitch by House Republicans to attach wildfire aid to a federal debt limit increase.

GOP lawmakers began floating the idea in meetings this weekend with incoming President Donald Trump. The thinking behind the plan, according to House Republicans, is that they’ll need bipartisan support to raise the cap on federal borrowing authority in the coming months and that including assistance for fire-stricken Southern California would be an incentive for Democrats to help solve one of Trump’s most pressing economic problems this year.

But Democrats are refusing to entertain the deal.

”Why would you be trying to link completely unrelated issues?” California Rep. Ted Lieu, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in an interview. “We’ve always helped victims of disasters, and to leverage their pain and suffering on totally unrelated issues — that is inappropriate.”

The GOP’s emerging gambit and Democrats’ immediate resistance underscore the dilemma that Republicans face when it comes to raising the debt ceiling and preventing a U.S. default later this year. Hardline fiscal conservatives who have long balked at debt limit increases pose a huge hurdle for Speaker Mike Johnson, where the narrow Republican majority leaves little room to advance legislation along party lines.

“I appreciate Johnson telling everybody he doesn’t have the votes to raise the debt ceiling by telling us he wants to link it to disaster aid,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, said in an interview. “If he wants to raise the debt ceiling, he’s going to have to talk to Democrats, not try to condition disaster aid.”

Fetterman becomes first congressional Democrat willing to meet with Trump– www.dailykos.com
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Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, is planning to meet with President-elect Donald Trump, making him the first-known congressional Democrat to make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago since Trump’s reelection.

The upcoming meeting was first reported by CBS News, which said that Trump was the one who reached out and requested to meet. The date and time for the frenemies’ rendezvous have not been finalized, according to the outlet.

In defending his meeting with the president-elect, Fetterman said that he and Trump simply planned to have a “conversation.” He conceded, though, that hot-button issues such as Trump’s insane pledge to occupy Greenland might come up.

“I think that one, he’s the president, or he will be officially,” Fetterman said. “And I think it’s pretty reasonable that if the president would like to have a conversation—or invite someone to have a conversation—to have it. And no one is my gatekeeper.”

Trump To Be America’s First Felon President As SCOTUS Humiliates Him While Denying Sentencing Delay– www.politicususa.com
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President-Elect Donald Trump frantically appealed to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to get sentencing for 34 felonies in the state of New York delayed. Not even a conversation with Justice Samuel Alito that came under scrutiny could sway the court.

 

In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled:

The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is denied for, inter alia, the following reasons.

First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal.

Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of “unconditional discharge” after a brief virtual hearing.

House Republicans To Pay For Tax Cuts For Rich By Taking Food And Healthcare Away From The Poor– www.politicususa.com
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House Republicans are putting it down on paper. They plan to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations by taking healthcare and food away from lower-income people.

 

Politico reported:

The policy menu suggests Republicans could capture major savings from Medicaid — up to an estimated $2.3 trillion. The list includes so-called per-capita caps on Medicaid for states, meaning the program would be paid for based on population instead of being an open-ended entitlement, and would institute work requirements in the program.

The list also includes a policy to equalize payments in Medicaid for able-bodied adults with those of traditional Medicaid enrollment — those with disabilities or low-income children, which would save up to $690 billion.

It would “recapture” $46 billion in savings from Affordable Care Act health insurance plan subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, setting up a major policy battle. It would also limit eligibility for plans based on citizenship status.