Tag Archives: democrat

House Republicans Vote to Rein In Serious Investigation of Republicans

by LindseyKempton Posted on January 3, 2017

Mother Jones

When Republicans control Congress and a Democrat is president, it’s all investigation all the time. It doesn’t matter if any of the stuff they’re investigating is genuinely scandalous or not. They just keep at it, month after endless month.

With a Republican about to take over the White House, we all expected this to come to a halt. But as usual, Republicans aren’t satisfied with just letting their investigatory fever quietly fade away. They have to take it a step further:

House Republicans, defying their top leaders, voted Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail.

The move to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics was not public until late Monday, when Representative Robert Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change with no advance public notice or debate.

This is all happening at the same time that the most corrupt president in modern history—almost by definition—is about to take office. Donald Trump has made it crystal clear that he doesn’t care about conflict-of-interest allegations and plans to use the presidency to boost his family’s wealth by as much as the traffic will bear. Republicans in Congress have responded by making it clear that this is fine with them, and now the House is making it equally clear that they don’t intend to allow any serious investigations of corruption among their own members. It’s going to be a free-for-all, and nobody with any subpoena power will ever be allowed to touch any Republican.

I didn’t expect them to be quite so obvious about this. But apparently they just don’t care anymore.

UPDATE: BuzzFeed does a good job of summarizing what this change means:

See the article here: 

House Republicans Vote to Rein In Serious Investigation of Republicans

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North Carolina Statehouse in Chaos as Republicans Act to Maintain Grip on Power

by DemetriLabarber Posted on December 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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The North Carolina statehouse descended into chaos on Friday as Republican legislators scrambled to pass measures to limit the power of the incoming Democratic governor and protesters were removed from the chambers and arrested.

North Carolina Republicans are seeking to entrench their political power after Democrat Roy Cooper defeated Republican incumbent Pat McCrory in the governor’s race last month. The GOP-dominated state Legislature passed a measure Friday that was quickly signed by McCrory and will effectively give Republicans permanent control of the State Board of Elections during major election years. The Legislature is also considering bills that would drastically reduce the number of political appointees the governor can make and give the state Senate veto power over the governor’s Cabinet picks.

Protesters descended on the statehouse to call on lawmakers to respect the will of the voters. More than a dozen of them have been arrested and kicked out of both the House and Senate chambers during Friday’s special session. General Assembly Police Chief Martin Brock, speaking outside the chambers, said the protests are disrupting lawmakers, and he’ll arrest anyone “leading songs, chants, or cheers.” Even so, protesters continue to speak out and to burst into chants such as “All political power comes from the people!” and “Whose house? Our house!”

Tensions were just as high inside the chamber, where procedural disagreements between Democrats and Republicans led to a shouting match between legislators. Several legislators also complained that the protesters outside prevented them from hearing their colleagues’ remarks. But the noise did not stop the legislators from passing Senate Bill 4, the bill to overhaul the State Board of Elections and reduce the influence of the governor’s party. Democratic legislators have argued that the bill is overly broad and that the special session does not allow enough time to discuss it.

Democratic members of the House continued to debate the purpose of the special session and the lack of notice given to Democrats before it began. “I think we are doing great harm to our body when we don’t give members equal access,” one legislator said. Throughout the session, Democrats have argued that the session is a blatant attempt to curb the powers of the governor-elect. On Thursday, Cooper threatened to sue the Legislature over any new laws he deems unconstitutional.

On a call with reporters, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a leading candidate for Democratic National Committee chair, said that North Carolina Republicans were “undermining the democratic prerogatives of the people of North Carolina” and that the bills passed during the special session “would lead to unprecedented partisan gridlock” in the state. North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Robin Hayes released a statement calling the protesters a “small mob” that violated “the rights of over nine million citizens.”

The News and Observer has a livestream of the commotion in the statehouse:

Update 4:45 p.m.: The state House and Senate passed the bill stripping the governor of power over his own Cabinet and subjecting these appointments to state Senate confirmation. McCrory has yet to sign the bill.

This story has been updated to reflect McCrory’s signing of Senate Bill 4 and the comments from Ellison and Hayes.

Excerpt from – 

North Carolina Statehouse in Chaos as Republicans Act to Maintain Grip on Power

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California Water Bill Rewards Farmers, Screws Environment

by ClifforG80 Posted on December 9, 2016

Mother Jones

A controversial bill that would override environmental rules to supply farmers with more water from California’s ecologically sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta sailed through the House of Representatives on Thursday. The bill may come up for a vote as soon as today in the Senate, where it is being championed by California senior Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat and powerful ally of agribusiness interests.

California’s other Democratic US senator, Barbara Boxer, staunchly opposes the bill and has threatened to filibuster it, potentially keeping her fellow senators from leaving for the year. It would be a dramatic last act for Boxer, an ally of environmental groups who is retiring this year after working closely with Feinstein in the Senate for 24 years. “I guess that’s how it goes,” Boxer said on the Senate floor this morning. “You come in fighting, you go out fighting.”

The contentious California provisions, which also include policies that would make it easier to build dams, were added on Monday by Bakersfield Republican Kevin McCarthy as a rider to the sprawling Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, a popular bipartisan bill that would also provide aid to Flint, Michigan. The provisions reflect negotiations between Feinstein, California’s 14 Republican lawmakers, and a handful of Democrats.

The bill represents the culmination of a fight that has been brewing over the course of California’s six-year drought. It pits Central Valley farmers and Los Angeles area homeowners against environmental interests, fishermen, and farmers in the Delta region east of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Los Angeles Times‘ Sarah D. Wire summarizes the conflict. (Today she is following the hearings live on Twitter):

At issue is that the measure would allow officials at state and federal water management agencies to exceed the environmental pumping limits to capture more water during storms. Those limits have been a pet peeve of water contractors, including the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which complained of water supplies “lost to the sea” during last winter’s heavy rains.

Federal biologists have said certain levels of water flowing through the delta are vital for native fish, which have suffered devastating losses during the state’s prolonged drought, and help maintain the quality of the delta’s freshwater supplies. In short, if fish are determined to have enough water, or are not near the pumps, the excess water could be sent to the south.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) characterized it as placing political wants above science to go around federal law.

“When an act of Congress specifically supersedes peer-reviewed biological opinions that are the very mechanism of how the Endangered Species Act gets implemented, that is a grave undermining of the act,” Huffman said.

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee’s powerful energy and water panel, typically serves as the key negotiator on California-related water bills. Progressives often accuse her of ignoring environmental interests in favor of agricultural ones, particularly the billionaire California farmers Stewart and Lynda Resnick, who use more water than all the homes in Los Angeles combined. For more on Feinstein’s ties with the Resnicks, read our profile of them here.

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California Water Bill Rewards Farmers, Screws Environment

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What Is Bernie Sanders’ Role in the Democratic Party?

by VicenteCulp086 Posted on November 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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As Democrats point fingers in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s surprise win last week, Bernie Sanders is taking aim at one culprit: the Democratic Party. “One of the reasons that he won is, in my view, a failure of the Democratic Party that must be rectified,” Sanders told a cheering crowd at a Thursday rally on Capitol Hill convened by his political action committee and a coalition of progressive advocacy groups.

Sanders, though, is opting to try to change the party from without rather than within. Although the self-identified democratic socialist just secured a leadership post in the party, as its outreach director, he will continue to serve in the Senate as an independent. “The real action to transform America won’t take place on Capitol Hill,” Sanders said Thursday morning at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, according to The Hill. “It will be in the grassroots America among millions struggling economically and young people.”

He added, “I initially understand my role to be to get those people into the political process to demand the US Congress and government and president represent all of the people and not just those on top. I’m excited about it, but how we go about it, I don’t know.”

Sanders’ party affiliation didn’t seem to matter much to supporters at the rally. “Is he an independent?” said Greg Hamilton, 23, who works for a group advocating criminal sentencing reform for youth offenders. “Is he a Democrat? Like, I could care less. I know that he represents what I want.” Hamilton voted for Sanders in the Democratic primary but for Clinton last week. “She would’ve been a whole heckuva lot better than Trump,” he said.

Sanders and Trump actually shared some populist messages on the campaign trail, including their opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that Clinton initially backed. But Lynette Raudner, a 31-year-old attendee of the rally, wasn’t impressed. “Do you really know where Donald Trump stands on trade?” asked Raudner, who volunteered for the Clinton campaign but could not vote because she was born in South Africa and is awaiting her citizenship. “If his message is to not have the TPP, then yeah, I’m glad that we have something in common, but I don’t know if that’s really the case.”

So where do Sanders and his movement go from here? His supporters who have responded to his message have no intention of giving up. Randle Edwards, 82, a retired law professor, said Sanders should focus his efforts on mobilizing his extensive donor network to regain a Democratic majority in the Senate in 2018. Edwards gives Sanders credit for his consistent message on wealth distribution, equal rights, and abortion. He added, “I’ve been waiting for Bernie Sanders for 50 years.”

Source:

What Is Bernie Sanders’ Role in the Democratic Party?

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Should Donald Trump Get a Mulligan on His Lawsuits?

by Francis3561 Posted on November 15, 2016

Mother Jones

Federalist Society stalwart Saikrishna Prakash thinks we need to cut Donald Trump some slack:

Unlike his predecessors, Trump faces or is pursuing a slew of civil lawsuits, perhaps as many as 75….The news is awash with reports that Trump’s lawyers have asked for a delay of proceedings until inauguration, saying the president-elect is now too busy to participate. But it is hard to see how Trump would have more time for this suit after he moves into the White House. Being president is not a part-time job.

….The new president appears doomed to be distracted by his private concerns. Fortunately, a solution is within our grasp. Congress can pass a law that would put these kinds of civil actions on hold while President Trump remains in office. The law would have to provide that any lawsuit against a sitting president or president-elect, filed before or after he or she assumed office, would not proceed until the president left office. Such a law wouldn’t protect the president from impeachment or criminal prosecution, but it would ensure that Trump would not be distracted by civil litigation arising out of his personal life or business interests.

Ha ha ha. That’s a good one, professor. But, um, no. There’s a reason that IOKIYAR—It’s OK If You’re A Republican—has become such a widely-used acronym. It’s because Republicans seem to think that anything goes when a Democrat is in office but Republicans should all be treated with kid gloves. Every Republican in the country thought it was a great idea to allow the Paula Jones lawsuit to go forward because, hey, Bill Clinton was in the White House. If it wrecks his agenda, that’s great. If it provides an excuse to impeach him, that’s great too. And anyway, spending a few hours in depositions is no big deal.

If that was true then, it’s true now. Everyone who voted for Trump knew about Trump’s penchant for lawsuits. It was all part of the package. The folks involved deserve their day in court.

For more on this, see Stephanie Mencimer’s piece about the Paula Jones case. Someone might want to ask Kellyanne Conway’s husband what he thinks of allowing sitting presidents to be sued in civil court.

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Should Donald Trump Get a Mulligan on His Lawsuits?

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Bernie Sanders Is the Most Popular Politician in America

by LesterSimcox Posted on October 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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One of the tightest House races in the country this year is in New York’s Hudson Valley, where Democrat Zephyr Teachout and Republican John Faso are vying to replace retiring GOP Rep. Chris Gibson. Faso, a former assemblyman and pipeline lobbyist, and Teachout, a fiercely anti-fracking Fordham law professor, are natural rivals. But it’s the flood of outside money that has defined the race. The latest effort: a new spot from the National Republican Congressional Committee, attacking Teachout as an ally of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders:

As a narrator explains that Teachout is supported by “socialist senator” Bernie Sanders, the actress playing Teachout reads a book called Socialism for Beginners (shouldn’t an actual socialist already know what socialism is?). The ad has it all: a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker, a Bernie Sanders mouse pad, a photo of Sanders and Teachout together—even a pair of Birkenstocks.

There is one major flaw with this message, though: Bernie Sanders is super popular. As of this writing, he is the most popular politician in America. His favorable ratings are two points higher than those of President Barack Obama (who is currently enjoying his highest numbers in 45 months). They are 10 points higher than Hillary Clinton’s. They are 19 points higher than those of both Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

Those are just the national numbers. There is good reason to think that in New York’s 19th Congressional District, a slightly-Democratic-leaning area where the Vermont senator traveled to campaign with Teachout last month, Sanders is even more popular. Sanders won the district overwhelmingly in the April primary, with 58 percent of the vote—one of his best districts in the state.

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Bernie Sanders Is the Most Popular Politician in America

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Hurricane Matthew struck South Carolina, weakened but dangerous.

by BlytheLavallee Posted on October 8, 2016

Six of the eight U.S. senators from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are climate deniers, rejecting the consensus of 99.98 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers that human activity is causing global warming. The exceptions are South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Florida’s Bill Nelson — the lone Democrat of the bunch.

Here are some of the lowlights from their comments on the climate change:

-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not understand the difference between climate and weather, arguing against climate action in a presidential debate in March: “As far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there’s no such thing.”

-Back in 2011, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said: “I have no clue [how much of climate change is attributable to human activity], and I don’t think that science can prove it.”

-In 2014, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis claimed that “the liberal agenda, the Obama agenda, the [then Sen.] Kay Hagan agenda, is trying to use [climate change] as a Trojan horse for their energy policy.”

-Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson offered his analysis  last year on whether the Greenland ice sheet is melting (it is): “There are mixed reviews on that, and there’s mixed scientific evidence on that.”

-Georgia Sen. David Perdue told Slate in 2014 that “in science, there’s an active debate going on,” about whether carbon emissions are behind climate change.

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Hurricane Matthew struck South Carolina, weakened but dangerous.

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For the first time in years, the cost of electricity at home has gone down.

by AbbieUsusd Posted on October 8, 2016

Six of the eight U.S. senators from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are climate deniers, rejecting the consensus of 99.98 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers that human activity is causing global warming. The exceptions are South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Florida’s Bill Nelson — the lone Democrat of the bunch.

Here are some of the lowlights from their comments on the climate change:

-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not understand the difference between climate and weather, arguing against climate action in a presidential debate in March: “As far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there’s no such thing.”

-Back in 2011, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said: “I have no clue [how much of climate change is attributable to human activity], and I don’t think that science can prove it.”

-In 2014, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis claimed that “the liberal agenda, the Obama agenda, the [then Sen.] Kay Hagan agenda, is trying to use [climate change] as a Trojan horse for their energy policy.”

-Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson offered his analysis  last year on whether the Greenland ice sheet is melting (it is): “There are mixed reviews on that, and there’s mixed scientific evidence on that.”

-Georgia Sen. David Perdue told Slate in 2014 that “in science, there’s an active debate going on,” about whether carbon emissions are behind climate change.

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For the first time in years, the cost of electricity at home has gone down.

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As the largest storm in a decade makes landfall in Florida, the Caribbean starts to dig out.

by AdriannZIOM Posted on October 7, 2016

Six of the eight U.S. senators from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are climate deniers, rejecting the consensus of 99.98 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers that human activity is causing global warming. The exceptions are South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Florida’s Bill Nelson — the lone Democrat of the bunch.

Here are some of the lowlights from their comments on the climate change:

-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not understand the difference between climate and weather, arguing against climate action in a presidential debate in March: “As far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there’s no such thing.”

-Back in 2011, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said: “I have no clue [how much of climate change is attributable to human activity], and I don’t think that science can prove it.”

-In 2014, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis claimed that “the liberal agenda, the Obama agenda, the [then Sen.] Kay Hagan agenda, is trying to use [climate change] as a Trojan horse for their energy policy.”

-Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson offered his analysis  last year on whether the Greenland ice sheet is melting (it is): “There are mixed reviews on that, and there’s mixed scientific evidence on that.”

-Georgia Sen. David Perdue told Slate in 2014 that “in science, there’s an active debate going on,” about whether carbon emissions are behind climate change.

View post:

As the largest storm in a decade makes landfall in Florida, the Caribbean starts to dig out.

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As the largest storm in a decade nears Florida, the Caribbean starts to dig out.

by CarolynTrice Posted on October 7, 2016

Six of the eight U.S. senators from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas are climate deniers, rejecting the consensus of 99.98 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers that human activity is causing global warming. The exceptions are South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Florida’s Bill Nelson — the lone Democrat of the bunch.

Here are some of the lowlights from their comments on the climate change:

-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not understand the difference between climate and weather, arguing against climate action in a presidential debate in March: “As far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there’s no such thing.”

-Back in 2011, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said: “I have no clue [how much of climate change is attributable to human activity], and I don’t think that science can prove it.”

-In 2014, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis claimed that “the liberal agenda, the Obama agenda, the [then Sen.] Kay Hagan agenda, is trying to use [climate change] as a Trojan horse for their energy policy.”

-Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson offered his analysis  last year on whether the Greenland ice sheet is melting (it is): “There are mixed reviews on that, and there’s mixed scientific evidence on that.”

-Georgia Sen. David Perdue told Slate in 2014 that “in science, there’s an active debate going on,” about whether carbon emissions are behind climate change.

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As the largest storm in a decade nears Florida, the Caribbean starts to dig out.

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