#Putin Caucus in US House of Representatives

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Alexei  navalny did not like tragedies. He preferred Hollywood films and fables in which heroes vanquish villains and good triumphs over evil. He had the looks and talent to be one of those heroes, but he was born in Russia and lived in dark times, spending his last days in a penal colony in the Arctic permafrost. A fan of “Star Wars”, he described his ordeal in lyrical terms. “Prison [exists] in one’s mind,” he wrote from his cell in 2021. “And if you think carefully, I am not in prison but on a space voyage…to a wonderful new world.” That voyage ended on February 16th.

Mr Navalny’s death was blamed by Russian prison authorities on a blood clot—though his doctor said he suffered from no condition which made that likely. Whatever ends up on his death certificate, he was killed by Vladimir Putin. Russia’s president locked him up; in his name Mr Navalny was subjected to a regime of forced labour and solitary confinement. Mr Navalny will be celebrated as a man of remarkable courage. His life will be remembered for what it says about Mr Putin, what it portends for Russia and what it demands of the world.

A man of formidable intelligence, Mr Navalny identified the two foundations on which Mr Putin has built his power: fear and greed. In Mr Putin’s world everyone can be bribed or threatened. Not only did Mr Navalny understand those impulses, he struck at them in devastating ways.

His insight was that corruption was not just a side hustle but the moral rot at the heart of Mr Putin’s state. His anti-corruption crusade formed a new genre of immaculately documented and thriller-like films that displayed the yachts, villas and planes of Russia’s rulers. These videos, posted on YouTube, culminated in an exposé of Mr Putin’s billion-dollar palace on the Black Sea coast that has been watched 130m times. Despite the palace’s iron gates, adorned with a two-headed imperial eagle, Mr Navalny portrayed its owner not as a tsar so much as a tasteless mafia boss.

Mr Navalny also understood fear and how to defeat it. Mr Putin’s first attempt to kill him was in 2020, when he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok smeared inside his underwear. By sheer good luck Mr Navalny survived, regained his strength in Germany and less than a year later flew back to Moscow to defy Mr Putin in a blast of publicity.

He returned in the full knowledge that he would probably be arrested. On the way back to confront the evil ruler who had tried to poison him he did not read Hamlet. He watched Rick and Morty, an American cartoon. By mocking Mr Putin, he diminished him. “I’ve mortally offended him by surviving,” he said from the dock during his trial in 2021. “He will enter history as a poisoner. We had Yaroslav the Wise and Alexander the Liberator. And now we will have Vladimir the Poisoner of Underpants.”

Mr Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in jail on extremism charges. He turned his sentence into an act of cheerful defiance. Every time he appeared in court hearings via video link from prison, his smile cut through the walls of his cell and beamed across Russia’s 11 time zones. On February 15th, on the eve of his death, he was in court again. Dressed in dark-grey prison uniform he laughed in the face of Mr Putin’s judges, suggesting they should put some money into his account as he was running short. In the end there was only one way Mr Putin could wipe the smile off his face.

In his essay “Live Not by Lies”, in 1974, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel-prize-winning Soviet novelist, wrote that “when violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: ‘I am violence. Run away, make way for me—I will crush you’.” Mr Navalny understood, but instead of running he held his ground.

His great strength was to understand Mr Putin’s fear of other people’s courage. In one of his early communications from jail he wrote that: “it is not honest people who frighten the authorities…but those who are not afraid, or, to be more precise: those who may be afraid, but overcome their fear.”

That is why his death portends a deepening of repression inside Russia. Mr Navalny’s murder was not the first and it will not be the last. The next targets could be Ilya Yashin, a brave politician who followed Mr Navalny to prison, or Vladimir Kara-Murza, a historian, journalist and politician who has been sentenced to 25 years on treason charges for speaking against the war. The lawyers and activists who continue to defend these dissidents are also in danger. Since Mr Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012, the number of prisoners has increased 15 times. Even as the remnants of Stalin’s gulag fill with political prisoners, professional criminals are being recruited and released to fight in Ukraine.

Mr Navalny’s death also casts a shadow over ordinary Russians. In Moscow and across Russia, people flooded the streets at the news. Before the police started to arrest them, they covered memorials for previous victims of political repression in flowers. Yet that repression is intensifying. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, 1,305 men and women have been prosecuted for speaking out against it. A wave of repression is also swallowing up people who never before engaged in politics. The president will shoot into the crowds if he must.

For the West, Mr Navalny’s death contains a call to action. Mr Putin considers its leaders too weak and too decadent to resist him. And for many years Western politicians and businessmen did much to prove that fear and greed work in the West, too. When Mr Putin first bombed and shelled Chechnya in the early 2000s, Western politicians turned a blind eye and continued to do business with his cronies. When he murdered his opponents in Moscow and annexed Crimea in 2014, they slapped his wrist. Even after he had invaded Ukraine in 2022, they hesitated to provide enough weapons for Russia to be defeated. Every time the West stepped back, Mr Putin took a step forward. Every time Western politicians expressed their “grave concern”, he smirked.

The West needs to find the strength and courage that Mr Navalny showed. It should understand that Mr Navalny’s murder, the soaring number of political prisoners, the torture and beating of people across Russia, the assassination of Mr Putin’s opponents in Europe and the shelling of Ukrainian cities are all part of the same war. Without resolve, the West’s military and economic superiority will count for nothing.

Western governments should start by treating people like Mr Kara-Murza as prisoners of Mr Putin’s war who need to be exchanged with Russian prisoners in the West or prisoners of war in Ukraine. They should not stigmatise ordinary Russians living under a paranoid dictator and his goons, or put the onus on ordinary people to overthrow the dictator who is repressing them.

The best retort to Mr Putin is by arming Ukraine. Every time America’s Congress votes down aid, Russia takes comfort. The leaders assembled at the Munich Security Conference, who heard Mr Navalny’s wife, Yulia, speak of justice for her husband’s death, need to stiffen their resolve to see through the war. For their part Ukrainian politicians must see that standing up for Russian activists and prisoners is also a way of helping their own country—just as Mr Navalny called for peace, for rebuilding Ukraine and the prosecution of Russian war crimes. Liberating Ukraine would be the best way to liberate Russia, too.

The voyage ends

After he had been poisoned, Mr Navalny returned home because he believed that history was on his side and that Russia was freeing itself from the deadly grip of its own imperial past. “Putin is the last chord of the ussr,” he told The Economist a few months before he took that last fateful journey. “People in the Kremlin know there is a historic current that is moving against them.” Mr Putin invaded Ukraine to reverse that current. Now he has killed Mr Navalny.

Mr Navalny would not want Mr Putin’s message to prevail. “[If I get killed] the obvious thing is: don’t give up,” he once told American film-makers. “All it takes for evil to triumph is the inaction of good people. There’s no need for inaction.”

Mr Navalny’s death has seemed imminent for months. And yet there is something crushing about it. He was not alone in believing that good triumphs over evil, and that heroes vanquish villains. His courage was an inspiration. To see that moral order so brutally overturned is a terrible affront. ■

[tomorrowusa]

If that list of the Putin Caucus members is too small to see, here's a link to the official vote tally by the Clerk of the US House.

The AYE votes for the Gaetz Amendment are mostly from Republicans in deep red districts. But there are a few exceptions like Lauren "Beetlejuice" Boebert who won by less than 550 votes last year and may be vulnerable in 2024.

Ukrainians have values similar to those of Americans. By attempting to sabotage Ukraine, the House Putin Caucus is demonstrating how anti-American it is.

ON A SIDE NOTE: To give you some idea of the sort of people the House Putin Caucus is supporting, check out this video. It's from YouTube user @RFU who posts daily reports on the war. This is for Day 571 (Sunday).

In the east of Ukraine, Russian troops attempted to surrender to Ukraine. But Russian forces further back opened fire on the surrendering Russians rather than on the Ukrainian troops. It was not an accident. Essentially, Russians are committing war crimes against their own soldiers.

[bopinion]

2024 / 16

Aperçu of the Week

"You can't knock on opportunity's door and not be ready."

(Peter Gene Hernandez, better known as Bruno Mars and my sons favorite soundtrack while he's cooking)

Bad News of the Week

Sport actually has nothing to do with politics. Because the competition is carried out by individuals who (can) stand outside of systems. Nevertheless, sport is often instrumentalized by politics by stylizing successful athletes as symbolic figures for the strength of a system. I can still remember the Olympic Games in the 70s and 80s very well, in which the athletes of the USA and the Soviet Union competed against each other in many ways as a priority. And Rocky IV, of course.

It is fitting that sports organizations have always been suspected of being corrupt - often rightly so, see FIFA. It is therefore clear that it is almost always not the athletes who are the problem, but the officials. Do you need proof? How about China and doping? Because there was a big boom this week, as a journalistic investigative team from ARD (the BBC of Germany) found out.

At a national swimming competition in China at the beginning of 2021, 23 swimmers tested positive in the mandatory doping tests - which means negative in this context. This was then covered up. With the knowledge of WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency). The agency did not consider it worth investigating the banned substance trimetazidine, for which the Russian figure skating prodigy Kamila Valiyeva was banned for four years in the same year. The Chinese swimmers, however, were not. In the following Summer Olympics in Tokyo, three of them won gold and two silver.

We can see that China today is what the Soviet Union (and to some extent the GDR) used to be - a regime that abuses even its top performers to score points at international level. The staff looking after athletes (including doctors who have long since thrown the Hippocratic Oath overboard) still have more say than the athletes themselves. An institution that was set up to prevent malpractice can also be corrupt. At the major sporting events this summer, first the European Men's Football Championships and then the Olympic Games in Paris, spectators will not know whether they are cheering on a fake. And the athletes themselves won't know whether the competition was fair at all.

Good News of the Week

At last, US weapons are back in Ukraine. For months, the Republican “Freedom caucus” in the House of Representatives had been standing on the brakes. And Ukraine lost. Because, as is generally the case in the NATO context, all other members cannot compensate for the loss of by far the most capable partner country. It is therefore a great relief that the rationalists in the USA have regained the upper hand. And are now giving the badly shaken Ukraine hope again.

The following still applies: if Putin can subjugate Ukraine or impose a dictated peace on it, he will not sit back contentedly in his armchair in the Kremlin and enjoy the day of victory. He will continue in his quest to bring the Soviet Union back from the dead. Even if the Baltic states are members of NATO, they would be his next victims (not to mention Moldova, for example). Because apparently he could simply allow himself to do this without being stopped. The democracy of the whole of Europe is being defended in Ukraine, that must not be forgotten. So my heartfelt thanks to the US Congress.

A positive side effect of all this is that the same financial package, which Joe Biden will undoubtedly sign as soon as possible, contains even more. Namely 26 billion US dollars for the suffering population in Gaza - in your face, Benjamin Netanyahu! And 8 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region - in your face, Xi Jinping! The USA are back on the world stage where they belong. I would not have thought it, but I must now pay tribute to a member of the Republican establishment. So thank you, Speaker of the House James Michael “Mike” Johnson. Hopefully I'll get over it...

Personal happy moment of the week

My son was in trouble with a teacher. A misunderstanding - that had developed into a solid crisis due to a certain stubbornness on both sides - was now threatening to cost him his participation in a project that is important to him. I took his side and was called in for a “clarifying discussion”. This was then canceled because the teacher (probably looking for reinforcement and arguments) consulted with other teachers. And “received very positive feedback on his behavior”. Disciplinary measures were not taken “because he is so committed and keeps the group together.” So a serious accusation suddenly turned into high praise.

I couldn't care less...

...that a Belgian court acquitted a driver who was driving with a blood alcohol level of 2.1. Because he suffers from the extremely rare “home-brew syndrome”: the body produces alcohol itself, which leads to the usual symptoms such as reduced responsiveness etc. Anyone who is a danger to themselves and, above all, to others on the road should not be allowed to drive - for whatever reason. After all, the disability of no blind person is their own fault. But no court in the world would allow him to drive.

It's fine with me...

...that for the first time in the history of the USA a criminal trial is taking place against a (former) president. I don't care whether or not you can plead guilty to election interference by falsifying business records because of hush money payments to a porn star. I just wish that a proven notorious liar and cheat, who is also a sexist, racist, homophobe and incidentally “unfit for office”, would finally have to take responsibility for his actions in court.

As I write this...

...April lives up to its name: first you can go swimming and two days later it's snowing. Candles are set up in the vineyards to warm the tender buds. And the hedgehog that has been hibernating on the terrace under our barbecue probably thinks it has woken up too early. Allergy sufferers are happy about the abrupt end of the pollen season. But everyone misses spring.

Post Scriptum

Everyone gets their life from their mother. She is the primary caregiver that all humans have in their first perceptions. That's why I've never understood why so many men simply devalue this in the course of their lives - and grant women fewer rights than themselves. Poverty, discrimination and a lack of equal rights cost lives, according to the latest UN World Population Report.

Not only is there no progress towards equality, there is actually a decline. The rights of “women, girls and gender-diverse people are being pushed back more and more,” says Dr. Natalia Kanem (head of the United Nations Population Fund). Lack of representation and limited self-determination force one in four women under a male-dominated yoke. And sexual violence is a problem in almost every country in the world. No man can want that. Not for his mother, not for his sister, not for his daughter. And not for his wife either. Shame on you!

[mariacallous]

“Give diplomacy a chance.” This phrase gets repeated in almost every conflict, and the war in Ukraine is no exception. A chorus of commentators, experts, and former policymakers have pushed for a negotiated peace at every turn on the battlefield: after the successful defense of Kyiv, once Russia withdrew to the east, during the summer of Russia’s plodding progress in the Donbas, after Russia’s rout in Kharkiv oblast, and now, in the aftermath of Russia’s retreat from Kherson. The better the Ukrainian military has done, the louder the calls for Ukraine to negotiate have become.

And today, it’s no longer just pundits pushing for a negotiated settlement. The U.S. House of Representatives’ progressive caucus penned a letter to President Joe Biden calling for a diplomatic solution, only to retract it a short time later. Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy has promised to scrutinize military aid to Ukraine and push for an end to the war. Even Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley has reportedly pushed for Ukraine to negotiate, although he subsequently made clear that the decision should be Kyiv’s alone.

And why not negotiate? Isn’t a diplomatic solution the best—indeed, the only—option for any kind of long-term settlement between Russia and Ukraine? And if so, what could possibly be the harm in exploring those options? Quite a lot, actually: Despite the way it is commonly portrayed, diplomacy is not intrinsically and always good, nor is it cost-free. In the Ukraine conflict, the problems with a push for diplomacy are especially apparent. The likely benefits of negotiations are minimal, and the prospective costs could be significant.

First, the argument that most wars end with diplomacy and so, therefore, will the war in Ukraine is misleading at best. Some wars—such as the U.S. Civil War and World War II—were fought to the bitter end. Others—like the American Revolution, the Spanish-American War, World War I, or the First Gulf War—were won on the battlefield before the sides headed to the negotiating table. Still others—like the Korean War—ended in an armistice, but only after the sides had fought to a standstill. By contrast, attempts at a diplomatic settlement while the military situation remained fluid—as the United States tried during the Vietnam War and, more recently, in Afghanistan—have ended in disaster. Even if most wars ultimately end in diplomatic settlements, that’s not in lieu of victory.

At this particular moment, diplomacy cannot end the war in Ukraine, simply because Russian and Ukrainian interests do not yet overlap. The Ukrainians, understandably, want their country back. They want reparations for the damage Russia has done and accountability for Russian war crimes. Russia, by contrast, has made it clear that it still intends to bend Ukraine to its will. It has officially annexed several regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, so withdrawing would now be tantamount, for them, to ceding parts of Russia. Russia’s economy is in ruins, so it cannot pay reparations. And full accountability for Russian war crimes may lead to Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top officials getting led to the dock. As much as Western observers might wish otherwise, such contrasts offer no viable diplomatic way forward right now.

Nor is diplomacy likely to forestall future escalation. One of the more common refrains as to why the United States should give diplomacy a chance is to avert Russia making good on its threats to use nuclear weapons. But what is causing Russia to threaten nuclear use in the first place? Presumably, it is because Russia is losing on the battlefield and lacks other options. Assuming that “diplomatic solution” is not a euphemism for Ukrainian capitulation, as its proponents insist, Russia’s calculations about whether and how to escalate would not change. Russia would still be losing the war and looking for a way to reverse its fortunes.

Diplomacy can moderate human suffering, but only on the margins. Throughout the conflict, Ukraine and Russia have negotiated prisoner swaps and a deal to allow grain exports. This kind of tactical diplomacy on a narrow issue was certainly welcome news for the captured troops and those parts of the world that depend on Ukrainian food exports. But it’s not at all clear how to ramp up from these relatively small diplomatic victories. Russia, for example, won’t abandon its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure heading into the winter as it attempts to freeze Ukraine into submission, because that’s one of the few tactics Russia has left.

At the same time, more expansive diplomacy comes at a cost. Pushing Ukraine to negotiate now sends a series of signals, none of them good: It signals to the Russians that they can simply wait out Ukraine’s Western supporters, thereby protracting the conflict; it signals to the Ukrainians—not to mention other allies and partners around the world—that the United States might put up a good fight for a while but will, in the end, abandon them; and it tells the U.S. public that its leaders are not invested in seeing this war through, which in turn could increase domestic impatience with it.

Starting negotiations prematurely carries other costs. As Biden remarked in June: “Every negotiation reflects the facts on the ground.” Biden is right. Ukraine now is in a stronger negotiating position because it fought rather than talked. The question today is whether Ukraine will ultimately regain control over Donbas and Crimea, not Kharkiv and Kherson. This would not have been the case had anyone listened to the “give diplomacy a chance” crowd back in the spring or summer.

There are plenty of reasons to believe that Kyiv will be in an even stronger bargaining position as time passes. The Ukrainians are coming off a string of successes—most recently retaking Kherson—so they have operational momentum. While Ukraine has suffered losses, Western military aid continues to flow in. Despite Russia’s missile strikes on civilian infrastructure, Ukrainian morale remains strong. By contrast, Russia is on the back foot. Its military inventories have been decimated, and it is struggling to acquire alternative supplies. Its mobilization effort prompted as many Russian men to flee the country as were eventually mobilized to fight in Ukraine. Moreover, as the Institute for the Study of War has assessed, “Russian mobilized servicemen have shown themselves to be inadequately trained, poorly equipped, and very reluctant to fight.”

By contrast, a negotiated settlement—even if it successfully freezes a conflict—comes with a host of moral, operational, and strategic risks. It leaves millions of Ukrainians to suffer under Russian occupation. It gives the Russian military a chance to rebuild, retrain, and restart the war at a later date. Above all, a pause gives time for the diverse international coalition supporting Ukraine to fracture, either on its own accord or because of Russian efforts to drive a wedge into the coalition.

Eventually, there will come a time for negotiations. That will be when Russia admits it has lost and wants to end the war. Or it will come when Ukraine says that the restoration of its territory isn’t worth the continued pain of the Russian bombardment. So far, neither scenario has come to pass. Indeed, the only softening of Russia’s position was Putin’s statement last month seemingly ruling out nuclear use��at least for the time being. Apart from that, the Kremlin seems intent on doubling down, even as its military continues to be slowly pushed out of Ukraine. That’s hardly an invitation to negotiate.

Might these arguments against the reflexive call for negotiations mean that war continues for months and possibly even years? Perhaps. But it’s not yet clear that there is a viable diplomatic alternative. And even if there was, it should be Ukraine’s choice whether or not to pursue it. Ukraine and its people, after all, are paying the price in blood. If the United States and its allies are sending tens of billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Ukraine, this is only a tiny fraction of what Washington has recently spent on defense and other wars. Thanks to the Ukrainians’ excellent use of this aid, the military threat from the United States’ second-most important adversary has been dealt a serious blow. The cold, if cruel, reality is that the West’s return on its investment in Ukraine seems high.

The harshness of these realities, however, does not make current calls for a negotiated settlement intrinsically moral. If diplomacy means ramming through a settlement when the battlefield circumstances dictate otherwise, it is not necessarily the morally more justifiable or strategically wiser approach. Sometimes fighting—not talking—is indeed the better option.

“To everything there is a season,” Ecclesiastes says, including “a time of war, and a time of peace.” There will come a time for diplomacy in Ukraine. Hopefully, it will come soon. But it doesn’t seem to be today.

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson:

24 Aug 2020

Trump is running far behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the polls. In early February 2020, at its best, his overall popularity rating hovered close to 50%. In the same month, according to a Gallup poll, 63% of Americans approved of the way he was handling the economy. To keep this economic success story going, Trump downplayed the coronavirus, leaving us wide open to its devastation. It hit the U.S. in earnest shortly after this poll was taken. The economy shut down, and we plummeted into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

But Trump is determined to be reelected, so determined that he has begun to suggest he will not accept a Biden victory as valid. There is room to speculate about why he is so obsessed with reelection that he took the unprecedented step of filing for reelection way back in January 2017, on the day of his inauguration. One possible answer is that campaign money can be used to pay for lawyers under certain circumstances. As of May, the campaign had spent more than $16 million on legal services—in comparison, George W. Bush spent $8.8 million; Barack Obama spent $5.5 million; and, in May, Biden had spent just $1.3 million. Another possible answer is that the Department of Justice maintains that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

To pull off a win Trump is trying to guarantee loyal Republican voters will show up to vote. To that end, he is favoring evangelical voters, his most loyal bloc. Last week’s posthumous pardon for Susan B. Anthony was a gift to anti-abortion activists; yesterday Trump explicitly called the attention of evangelical Christians to his lie that “The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat National Convention.” (They didn’t. The Muslim caucus and the LGBTQ caucus, both of which met privately, left the words “under God” out. All the public, televised events used the words.)

This morning he was more abrupt. He tweeted: “Happy Sunday! We want GOD!” And then he went golfing.

He is also trying to consolidate power over Republican lawmakers, making the party his own. The Republican National Convention starts tomorrow night, and it seems it will be the Trump Show. The convention was initially supposed to be in Charlotte, North Carolina, and then Trump moved it to Jacksonville, Florida, when North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, would not guarantee he could have full capacity despite the coronavirus. Finally, in the wake of the under-attended Tulsa rally, Trump recognized that the convention would have to be virtual. But this has left planners scrambling to plan a convention in four weeks, when planning one usually takes a full year. No one seems quite sure what is going to happen.

It is traditional for a candidate to put in a short appearance to acknowledge the nomination and then give a keynote acceptance speech on the last day. But the RNC’s announced line-up features Trump speaking every night in the prime-time slot. The speakers include the First Lady and all of the adult Trump children, including Tiffany, but do not include any of the previous Republican presidents or presidential nominees, which is unusual.

Trump will speak live from the White House. This raises legal questions because while the president and vice-president are not covered by the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities, the rest of the White House staff is. Further, it is against the law to coerce federal employees to conduct political activity.

Vice President Mike Pence will also speak from federal property—possibly Fort McHenry— the First Lady will speak from the newly renovated Rose Garden, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will apparently speak from Jerusalem while on an official trip to the Middle East, although secretaries of state generally do not speak at either political convention. Democrats have raised concerns about the overlap between official property and business and the Trump campaign.

The Republicans have written no platform to outline policies and goals for the future. Instead they passed a resolution saying that “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” The party appears now to be Trump’s.

But….

The Republicans’ next resolution calls on the media “to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration.” And a final resolution prohibited the Republicans from making any motions to write a new platform.

If you read that carefully, you see people trying to convince everyone that they are united, when they are, in fact, badly split.

Trump’s extremism is alienating the voters that other Republican lawmakers need to stay in power, and those lawmakers are trying to keep their distance from him without antagonizing his base. Yesterday, in Portland, Oregon, the police refused to respond as neo-fascist Proud Boys and armed militia members staging a “Back the Blue” rally attacked Black Lives Matter protesters, who fought back. It is a truism in American history that violence costs a group political support, and militia groups are angry because Facebook has banned them, hurting their ability to recruit.

Today, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officers shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back multiple times in front of his children; the shooting was caught on video and has sparked outrage.

Tell-all books are also undermining the president. Yesterday, it came out that when researching her book, Mary Trump, the president’s niece, recorded her aunt, Maryanne Trump Barry, Trump’s sister, discussing Trump. “All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said. “He has no principles. None. None.” “Donald is cruel,” she said, “he was a brat.” A new book by CNN reporter Brian Stelter shows how Trump simply echoes the personalities at the Fox News Channel. And former Trump fixer Michael Cohen is about to release his own book about his years working for Trump.

Trump also took a personal hit tonight, when advisor Kellyanne Conway announced she was leaving the White House. Both she and her husband, George Conway, a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, are stepping away from the public eye to deal with family issues exacerbated by the political drama of the past several years.

And the Russia story, revived by the fifth volume of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, is not going away. Tonight, the Daily Beast reported that Jared Kushner—who after, all, could not get a security clearance until Trump overruled authorities-- has been using a secret back channel to communicate with a Putin representative. According to the story, Steve Bannon, who was arrested on Friday by the acting U.S. Attorney at the Southern District of New York and so now has an excellent reason to flip, knew all about it.

This afternoon, Trump tried to change the news trend when he called a press conference to announce what he called a “safe and effective treatment” for Covid-19. The FDA has approved an Emergency Use Authorization for convalescent plasma, a treatment involving giving anti-body rich plasma from those who have had the virus to those ill with it. Studies show that the treatment has some potential, but there has been little scientific study of it, and it is certainly not established as an effective treatment. Federal health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have objected to the EUA until there is more information; Trump has accused the doctors of delaying approval for political reasons. He walked out of the press conference after a reporter asked about the discrepancy between his triumphant announcement of a treatment and a doctor's explanation that plasma has potential.

So the best option for the president to win in 2020 might be to keep Biden supporters from voting. Yesterday, the House passed a bill committing $25 billion to the United States Postal Service and to stop Postmaster General Louis DeJoy from making more changes that are delaying the delivery of the mail. Today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to take up the bill.

But Americans have figured out that they can avoid using the slowed USPS by turning to Ballot Drop Boxes. So today, Trump tweeted that “Mail Drop Boxes… are a voter security disaster,” that are “not Covid sanitized.”

Twitter slapped a warning on it: “This tweet violated the Twitter rules about civic and election integrity.”

[bountyofbeads]

Opinion: A letter to Kurdish soldiers from a US military wife

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/17/opinions/letter-to-kurdish-soldiers-from-military-wife-opinion/index.html

PLEASE READ 📖 these 3 pieces as you consider voting for Donald Trump. 👇🤔😢😭😭😭

A letter to Kurdish soldiers from a US military wife

Published Oct 17, 2019 | CNN | Posted October 18, 2019 |

Editor's Note: This article was written by the wife of a Special Operations soldier, who has served throughout the Middle East. CNN is not revealing her identity at her request. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion at CNN.

(CNN) - Dear Kurdish soldiers,

You don't know me, but I have known of you for most of my adult life. When my military husband and I quickly married, knowing he was deploying to the Middle East to be part of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I feared what he and his Special Operations unit would face when they arrived.

How bad would the fighting be? How long would they be gone? Would he survive?

Months later, he returned and recounted to me what he could about his experience. I asked how he had made it through. He replied, "We had help. We had the Kurds."

He told me stories of how the Kurdish people in Northern Iraq supported the troops, advised them, stood by them, fought shoulder to shoulder with them in combat, and became allies and friends. And I became grateful -- immensely, unwaveringly, and forever grateful for you.

Since then, the word "Kurds" in my home has meant something. It has meant "ally" and "friendship."

There are pictures of Iraqi Kurds alongside my husband and fellow soldiers in our home. I have a coffee mug with depictions of female Syrian Kurdish soldiers on it that I proudly use to remind me of you. My children play soccer in their Kurdistan jerseys.

The Kurdish people are not nameless, faceless people across the world. You hold a place of honor and respect in our home. It's important to me that all of you know that. I owe you so much. My husband is home safe today after years of fighting and I know you helped make that happen.

But now, I watch the news in horror. I see promises broken, progress destroyed, years of hard work and unimaginable sacrifice gone in a tweet. I see allies betrayed, their faces in my picture frame. While watching the news, my children turn to me and ask if those are our friends and I say yes. They have looks of confusion on their faces.

I can't imagine what your families are going through. I can't imagine their fear. I can't imagine these things because for the last 17 years you have fought to help us keep an attack off our soil, and I know that has now compromised your safety. It breaks my heart.

Where I come from, a person's word means something. Our honor and integrity are everything, as I know yours are to you. To read in international newspapers that the United States, my country, has abandoned the Kurds is absolutely heartbreaking.

Hasty decisions like this have not only put your people in terrible danger, they make the situation for our soldiers there on the Syrian-Turkish border much more difficult. My husband was with you on that border not long ago and I can't imagine what our soldiers' families are feeling right now.

And it's not just safety. It's hard to imagine how difficult it is for American soldiers to hear a partner and ally's calls for help and not be allowed to answer them. It's also hard to imagine you having to turn to Putin or the Assad regime for support because you could no longer count on Americans to keep their promise.

I worry for the safety of you and your families. I worry about the instability of the region and what that could mean for the future. I worry about the thousands of ISIS fighters we worked so hard to put in prisons, and who you must walk away from as you defend yourselves. I can't imagine the threat that now poses for us all. I see the look on my husband's face when he watches the news at the end of the day. The only phrase that comes to mind is "I'm sorry."

I write you today, on behalf of my family, to say thank you for everything you have done for us. Thank you for your friendship, for keeping your word and fighting alongside us, for staying the course year after year. Thank you for keeping my husband safe so he could come back home to me and my children. You have my sincerest prayers today that you too may safely return to yours. Thank you to your families that sacrificed without you, so you could make this partnership happen.

I pray we return to your side, that we stand by you, and that this has not all been in vain.

Forever yours,

A Grateful Wife

********

On Syria, Trump is pushing Republicans too far

Opinion by SE Cupp |Updated 10:00 AM ET, October 18, 2019 | CNN | Posted October 18, 2019 |

Editor's Note: SE Cupp is a CNN political commentator and the host of "SE Cupp Unfiltered." This piece has been adapted from her Saturday evening show monologue. The views expressed in this commentary are solely hers. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) - Defending the indefensible has become a cottage industry for Republican lawmakers in the era of Trump.

In the days and weeks surrounding President Donald Trump's decision last year to enforce the separation and caging of asylum-seeking children at the southern border, Republican lawmakers were largely supportive of him.

In the days after a baffling news conference last year in which President Trump, standing alongside Vladimir Putin, parroted the duplicitous Russian position that it did not meddle in our elections -- even though his own intelligence community had said the opposite -- Republican lawmakers shrugged.

In the days and weeks after the release of the Mueller report earlier this year, which revealed multiple examples of the President's attempts to engage in obstructive conduct, Republican lawmakers were defiantly behind him.

And in the days after the news about President Trump's alleged attempt to coerce the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival (Trump denied that was his purpose) -- news that unleashed a stunning flood of evidence, transcripts, testimony, texts, and whistleblowers and ultimately resulted in an impeachment inquiry -- the GOP circled the wagons around their President.

Those are just a few of the many embarrassing episodes from the past few years where Republican lawmakers had opportunities to condemn the indefensible, and many have chosen not to. Many, in fact, have decided to abandon their conservative principles, their ethical and constitutional obligations -- not to mention their sense of common decency -- to justify Trump's odious behavior and deleterious decisions.

One issue, however, has proven surprisingly perilous for the President, a rare pressure point that has caused Republican lawmakers to summon courage and roundly condemn him: Syria.

While President Trump hopes the announcement Thursday of a 120-hour ceasefire in Turkey, which Turkey says is "not a ceasefire," might appease his many detractors, much of the damage is already done.

In the days after President Trump's disastrous, immoral, inexplicable decision to pull US troops out of Kurdish-controlled Northern Syria, unleashing the Turkish army on an overwhelmed US ally, sending untold numbers of ISIS prisoners back into the Sahel to reorganize, and handing some of the world's worst actors the keys to a broke-down and dangerous palace, Republicans were quick to voice their disapproval.

Even his staunchest allies, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, have freely rebuked him. Graham told an NBC News reporter that he would "become President Trump's worst nightmare" on Syria if he didn't reverse course: "This is a defining moment for President Trump. He needs to up his game."

It wasn't the first time he's drawn this reaction: When Trump first threatened to pull troops out of Syria in late 2018, defying his generals and security advisers, Republicans were stunned. Graham told reporters, "If Obama had done this, we'd be going nuts right now: how weak, how dangerous."

He and other Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio and Joni Ernst, signed a letter telling Trump to reconsider.

That episode, in fact, led two of Trump's most important figures in the Syria conflict, Gen. James Mattis and Brett H. McGurk, the American envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, to resign their posts.

And now, as a quickly spiraling disaster in Northern Syria grows worse, Republicans have come together again in a rare reproval of the President. The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to condemn Trump for pulling troops out of Syria to allow for a Turkish invasion by a vote of 354-60, with 129 members of his own party voting in favor of the measure.

It's hard not to notice the glaring singularity of Syria as an issue that, sui generis, unlocks the Republican caucus from Trump's otherwise vise-like grip.

One cynical explanation for this is that foreign policy issues are usually a safer space for dissent, at least in the short term. Lawmakers assume constituents back home are more concerned about immediate and pressing domestic issues, especially during an election cycle, and many are likely gambling that Trump isn't going to unleash his primary attack apparatus against them over a Syria disagreement.

But the other explanation is that the consequences of Trump's impulsive, ill-informed, politically craven and incomprehensible decision to abandon our Kurdish allies, empower Turkey's Erdogan and Syria's Assad, dissolve our containment of ISIS and put hundreds of thousands of lives in the balance are just too much to stomach for Republican lawmakers.

They have little to gain at home for condemning Trump's actions overseas. Voters are generally apathetic to foreign policy issues. In a Gallup poll from earlier this year that asked what voters think is the most important problem facing the country today, issues like immigration, health care, gun crime and the environment led the lists. Foreign policy got just 1% of the vote, and both ISIS and Russia received 0%.

So the rebuke of Trump wins Republican lawmakers no points in their own districts, at least in the immediate future.

But the long gaze of history is far less forgiving.

When the fog of war clears, voters do tend to hold major foreign policy blunders against elected officials, even in their own party. See: the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Republicans know that the actions Trump is taking today in the Middle East could haunt him and the GOP for years to come.

And it's not just the folly of war they're worried about. It's the significant humanitarian crisis this will manifest, adding to the one that already exists in that region. There's the long-term threat to our own national security when ISIS and other terror actors regain a footing in Europe and even here at home. There's the destabilizing effect this has on important US allies like Israel. And there's the breakdown of trust among our allies all over the world.

All of that is -- right now -- staring GOP lawmakers in the face.

It should tell us something that Republicans, who are usually so protective of this President, despite an ever-crescendoing wave of bad behavior and bad decisions, have spoken out so vocally and unilaterally against him when it came to Syria. That's how fraught, how devastating and potentially disastrous this issue is both politically and practically.

And that's a problem for Trump. Because if he decides not to listen, it's an excuse for Republican lawmakers, who may have secretly been looking for an opportunity, to break ranks, and at the worst possible time for the President -- when impeachment is actually on the table.

For all those reasons, Trump should be extremely concerned. He doesn't like to be told no, and he doesn't like defectors. But on this issue, perhaps more than any other, he would be wise to listen to the majority of his own party telling him to stop. Otherwise, it may just spell the end for his presidency.

Correction: An earlier version of this commentary incorrectly stated the duration of the ceasefire in Turkey announced Thursday. It is a 120-hour ceasefire.

*********

What Mick Mulvaney's stunning admission tells us about Trump

Opinion by Paul Begala | Published Oct 17, 2019 | CNN | Posted October 18, 2019 |

Editor's Note: Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and served as a counselor to Clinton in the White House.

(CNN) - There is a bit of a brother-and-sisterhood former senior White House aides. Despite deep political and policy differences, I respect those who choose to serve. The White House can be a dream job -- it was the best professional experience and highest honor of my life. But it can also be, as President Clinton told me the first time I set foot in the Oval Office, "the crown jewel of the federal penal system."

My heart usually goes out to White House staffers. The hours are long, the challenges great. So it is with no joy that I offer this assessment of Mick Mulvaney's performance running Donald Trump's White House: it stinks.

Acting White House chief of staff Mulvaney needs to start acting like a chief of staff.

In his press briefing today, Mulvaney revealed himself to be a yes-man when this President needs someone who can tell him no.

The most important, most difficult, most loyal two words a White House staffer can use are: "No, sir."

President Trump is on his third chief of staff and diminishes and insults Mr. Mulvaney by making him merely "Acting" chief of staff. He's on his fourth national security adviser, his third press secretary, and his third defense secretary. Trump burns through people, it seems, until he gets what he wants. What's more important is what he needs -- what we all need. And that is a White House staff that will tell him to knock it off.

When the President wants to politicize national security, corrupting it for his partisan needs, the only acceptable response is "No, sir." When he seeks to take Ukraine policy away from Ukraine policymakers and give it to his unappointed, unconfirmed, unaccountable private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the only acceptable response is "No, sir." When the President acts as if he is above the law and beyond the Constitution, directing a global summit and millions of dollars to one of his golf resorts, the only acceptable response is "No, sir."

Instead, Mr. Mulvaney debases himself. When ABC's Jonathan Karl asked him about the clear quid pro quo in Mr. Trump's dealings with Ukraine, Mulvaney sniffed, "We do that all the time with foreign policy." That's the problem, Mick. The Corleone family used extortion all the time, too. Didn't make it right. Mulvaney was even more dismissive of those who decry political desires overruling security interests: "Get over it."

He was just getting started. Mr. Mulvaney, defending the indefensible grift of President Trump ordering that the G-7 summit be at his Trump National resort in Doral, Florida, laughably claimed of Mr. Trump, "He's not making money off of this."

Baloney. Trump's decision will flood his resort with federal funds for security, communications, and a host of other needs. Advance teams from around the world will fill the resorts' rooms for weeks, maybe months. Foreign governments will spend huge sums -- generating profits that will line Trump's pockets.

This is precisely what the Constitution forbids in Article I, Section 9, when it states that no one occupying federal office can accept an emolument -- which is profit -- from a "King, Prince or foreign State." (Incidentally, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Fahrenthold, of the Washington Post, has reported that revenue at Trump's Doral resort fell 13.8% from 2016 to 2017, and net operating income fell 62%.)

No sir. That's what you say. No sir, you can't shake down Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden. No, sir, you can't withhold military aid if the Ukrainians don't embrace a nitty right-wing conspiracy theory. No, sir, you can't call on China to interfere in our elections the way you called on Russia to. No sir, you can't spend millions of taxpayer dollars at your own resort. No sir, you can't reap profits from foreign governments spending millions at your resort either. No sir, you're not above the law.

Those words never seem to emerge from Mr. Mulvaney's mouth. Far from being a public servant, the acting chief of staff revealed himself to be a throne-sniffer of the worst order. If he were any more of a toady, he'd be catching flies with his tongue.

[patriotsnet]

How Many Black Republicans In Congress

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-black-republicans-in-congress/

How Many Black Republicans In Congress

Fact Check: Were The First 23 Black Members Of Congress Republicans

GOP lawmaker has message for Congressional Black Caucus shutting him out

A post about the political affiliation of the first Black members of Congress has spread on social media.

The Claim

A widely shared post on social media said that the first 23 Black members of Congress were all Republicans.

Alongside an archival image of early Black members of Congress, it said, in capital letters: “History that is never taught.

“The first 23 Black congressman were all Republicans.”

A post of this image was shared on September 5 and has more than 9,000 likes and more than 4,000 retweets at the time of writing.

CrowGuy61 #AnatomyOfViolence

The Facts

Newsweek contacted Historian of the House of Representatives Matthew Wasniewski to ask about the claim.

He confirmed that the first 23 Black members of Congress had been Republicans,

“The figure of 23 is in fact correct,” he said. “It includes 22 Black Members of Congress during Reconstruction and the late 19th century all from reconstructed southern states, and all Republican.

“After the last of those 22 individuals left the House in 1901 , there was a three-decade gap where no African American served in either chamber because of the rise of Jim Crow and the denial of voting rights.

“In 1928, Oscar De Priest of Illinois, who represented a Chicago-centered district, became the first Black American elected from a northern state. He was a Republican and his rise in Illinois politics reflected the effects of the Great Migration.

“De Priest was the 23rd African American to serve in Congress.”

The Ruling

House Votes To Condemn Trump’s ‘racist Comments’

Hurd has taken vocal stances against Trump in other instances, too. Last year in a New York Times op-ed, Hurd who had been an undercover CIA officer for almost 10 years before being elected to Congress asserted that Trump was being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The president’s failure to defend the United States intelligence community’s unanimous conclusions of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and condemn Russian covert counterinfluence campaigns and his standing idle on the world stage while a Russian dictator spouted lies confused many but should concern all Americans,” Hurd wrote. “By playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands, the leader of the free world actively participated in a Russian disinformation campaign that legitimized Russian denial and weakened the credibility of the United States to both our friends and foes abroad.”

Tim Scott Only Black Gop Senator Set To Respond To Biden

WASHINGTON Tim Scott, the only Black Republican senator, is often happy to dart past Capitol Hill reporters without saying much. This time, he and the spotlight have found each other.

Brought up by a single mother who worked backbreaking hours as a nursing assistant, the 55-year-old Scott has spent a decade in Congress representing South Carolina. Now, the lawmaker who combines a willingness to address racial questions with an advocacy of vintage conservative themes such as opportunity and optimism is giving his partys nationally televised response to President Joe Bidens Wednesday night address to Congress.

Scott also is the lead GOP negotiator as the two parties seek an accord on legislation overhauling police procedures. The issue has long eluded compromise despite national attention fanned by last years killing of George Floyd, a Black man, and this months conviction of a former Minneapolis police officer in his slaying.

You figure out who your audience is, you figure out what you want to say and you try and find a way to say it well, Scott told reporters Tuesday about his speech preparations. And you lean into who you are.

GOP leaders choíce of Scott to answer Biden comes at a tense political moment.

Scott, from North Charleston, South Carolina, nearly dropped out of high school. He tells of a life-changing turnabout after befriending a businessman who became a mentor and stressed the value of hard work.

Also Check: How Many Republicans Are Registered In The Us

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Congressional Black Caucus Pac

The Congressional Black Caucus PAC is a political action committee founded as a political arm of the caucus, aiming “to increase the number of Black Members of the US Congress…support Non-Black Candidates who will champion the needs and interests of the Black Community” and increase the “participation of Black Americans in the political process”.Gregory Meeks chairs the PAC. The CBCPAC is known for its moderate-lean. The PAC caused controversy when it backed incumbent Michael Capuano, a white man, over challenger Ayanna Pressley, a black woman who ultimately defeated him. Two years later, it backed Eliot Engel, a white incumbent, over Jamaal Bowman, a black challenger who went on to defeated him.

HuffPost reporters questioned how endorsements were made, noting that the executive board included corporate lobbyists over CBC members. Representative Brenda Lawrence criticized the PAC’s endorsement policies in 2020 and called for it to be reevaluated.Color of Change, a civil rights advocacy nonprofit group, released a letter in 2016 calling on the CBCPAC to cut ties with lobbyists from industries that are “notorious for the mistreatment and exploitation of Black people” including private prisons, pharmaceutical companies, student loan creditors, and big tobacco.

Changes To House Rules

After Democrats took control of the House in the 116th Congress, they voted to change some rules from the previous session of Congress when Republicans were in control. Some of the changes appear below.

PAYGO: Democrats approved PAYGO, a provision that requires legislation that would increase the deficit to be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases.

Ethics: Democrats made changes to House ethics rules that required all House members to take ethics training, not just new members. The rules also required members to reimburse taxpayers for settlements that that result from a members discrimination of someone based on race, religion, sex, national origin, or disability, among other things. Lawmakers were also prohibited from sitting on corporate boards.

Climate change committee: Democrats created a new climate change committee to address the issue. The committee was not given subpoena power or the ability to bring bills to the floor.

A full explanation of the rules changes can be viewed here.

Recommended Reading: What Caused Republicans To Gain Power In Congress In 1938

Join Govtracks Advisory Community

Were looking to learn more about who uses GovTrack and what features you find helpful or think could be improved. If you can, please take a few minutes to help us improve GovTrack for users like you.

Start by telling us more about yourself:

We hope to make GovTrack more useful to policy professionals like you. Please sign up for our advisory group to be a part of making GovTrack a better tool for what you do.

Young Americans have historically been the least involved in politics, despite the huge consequences policies can have on them. By joining our advisory group, you can help us make GovTrack more useful and engaging to young voters like you.

Our mission is to empower every American with the tools to understand and impact Congress. We hope that with your input we can make GovTrack more accessible to minority and disadvantaged communities who we may currently struggle to reach. Please join our advisory group to let us know what more we can do.

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Would you like to join our advisory group to work with us on the future of GovTrack?

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Thank you for joining the GovTrack Advisory Community! Well be in touch.

Dont Miss: How Many Electoral Votes Do Republicans Have

Bipartisan ‘bromance’ Blossoms As 2 Texas Congressmen Make Dc Road Trip

Hurd was also one of just four House Republicans who voted for a resolution to condemn Trump’s racist tweets last month attacking four freshman Democratic women of color. His positions and willingness to speak out against Trump made sense, given the political and demographic makeup of his district. The 23rd District is almost 70% Latino, and Hillary Clinton won it by about 3.5 percentage points in 2016. Last year’s midterm elections left Hurd as one of just three House Republicans to sit in a district carried by Clinton, not Trump.

But Hurd only barely survived in 2018 to win reelection by just 926 votes over Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran who had already announced she was seeking a rematch in 2020. Without Hurd, who was seen by Republicans and Democrats alike as an unusually strong GOP incumbent, the Cook Political Report has moved its rating for this seat from Toss Up to Lean Democratic.

Recommended Reading: American Flag Lapel Pin With Black Dot

Bipartisan Bromance Blossoms As 2 Texas Congressmen Make Dc Road Trip

Hurd was also one of just four House Republicans who voted for a resolution to condemn Trumps racist tweets last month attacking four freshman Democratic women of color. His positions and willingness to speak out against Trump made sense, given the political and demographic makeup of his district. The 23rd District is almost 70% Latino, and Hillary Clinton won it by about 3.5 percentage points in 2016. Last years midterm elections left Hurd as one of just three House Republicans to sit in a district carried by Clinton, not Trump.

But Hurd only barely survived in 2018 to win reelection by just 926 votes over Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran who had already announced she was seeking a rematch in 2020. Without Hurd, who was seen by Republicans and Democrats alike as an unusually strong GOP incumbent, the Cook Political Report has moved its rating for this seat from Toss Up to Lean Democratic.

You May Like: How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans In The Us

Black Republicans In The Cbc

Black Democrats and Republicans in Georgia Debate the Issues | WSJ

The caucus is officially non-partisan; but, in practice, the vast majority of African Americans elected to Congress since the CBC’s founding have been Democrats. Ten African American Republicans have been elected to Congress since the caucus was founded in 1971: Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts , DelegateMelvin H. Evans of the Virgin Islands , Representative Gary Franks of Connecticut , Representative J. C. Watts of Oklahoma , Representative Allen West of Florida , Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina , Representative Will Hurd of Texas , Representative Mia Love of Utah , Representative of Florida , and Representative Burgess Owens of Utah . Of these ten, only Evans, Franks, West, and Love joined the CBC; currently, the caucus includes no Republicans, although Byron Donalds has applied to join the CBC.

Edward Brooke was the only serving African American U.S. senator when the CBC was founded in 1971, but he never joined the group and often clashed with its leaders. In 1979 Melvin H. Evans, a non-voting delegate from the Virgin Islands, became the first Republican member in the group’s history. Gary Franks was the first Republican voting congressman to join in 1991, though he was at times excluded from CBC strategy sessions, skipped meetings, and threatened to quit the caucus.

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New Members Of Congress

See also: New members elected in 2018 congressional elections

In the 2018 Senate and House elections, nine new members were elected to the Senate and 93 new members were elected to the House. These new members of Congress defeated incumbents or competed for open seats as a result of appointments to state and executive offices, resignations, and retirements. Here are some facts about the new members of Congress.

Five incumbent senatorsfour Democrats and one Republicanwere defeated in general elections. Senators who defeated incumbents were Mike Braun , Kevin Cramer , Josh Hawley , Jacky Rosen , and Rick Scott .

Three senators, all Republican, did not seek re-election in 2018. They were replaced by two Republicans and a Democrat. Sen. Thad Cochran also retired early, leaving his seat vacant. Cindy Hyde-Smith was elected to complete his term.

Fifty-two members of the U.S. House did not seek re-election in 2018. The 34 outgoing Republicans were replaced by 24 Republicans and 10 Democrats. The 18 outgoing Democrats were replaced by 15 Democrats and three Republicans.

Four members of the U.S. Housetwo Democrats and two Republicanswere defeated in primary elections in 2018. They were replaced by three Democrats and one Republican.

Thirty members of the U.S. House, all Republicans, were defeated in the general election by Democrats.

John James Loses To Debbie Stabenow

John James is a former U.S. Air Force pilot turned Michigan businessman who was endorsed by President Donald Trump on July 27.

But the political hill was too steep to climb for James who lost to Democratic incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow by 5.4 points with 51.9% of votes going to Stabenow and 46.1% going to James, according to the New York Times.

Polls showed James was a long shot to defeat Stabenow, who has served Michigan in the U.S. Senate since 2000 in a state that Trump narrowly won during his 2016 White House run.

Trumpâs endorsement of James may have inadvertently hurt the West Point grad in a state where the presidentâs approval rating among likely voters was just 37% in September, according to the Detroit News.

Read Also: When Did The Democrats And Republicans Switch Platforms

Jineea Butler Loses To Adriano Espaillat

Originally from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Jineea Butler was a star basketball player at Long Island University Brooklyn and moved to Harlem in 1998, according to her biography. Her conservative values didnât win over many people in New Yorkâs 13th District, where retired U.S. lawmaker Charles Rangel served for 46 years. Espaillat has served the 13th District, which includes Manhattanâs Harlem and Washington Heights neighborhoods, since defeating Rangelâs handpicked successor Keith Wright in 2016. The district hasnât elected a Republican since at least 1971.

An Incoming Class Of History

Several of the newly elected state representatives are making history.;

The Republican Madison Cawthorn, 25, who beat the Democrat Moe Davis to represent North Carolinas 11th Congressional District, will become the youngest member of Congress in modern history.

The Democrat Cori Bush is set to become the first Black congresswoman from Missouri after winning in the states 1st Congressional District.

The Democrats Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres will also be the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, after winning in New Yorks 17th and 15th districts respectively.

And nine out of the eleven Republicans who have so far unseated incumbent Democrats are women wins that will drastically expand the representation of women and especially of women of color in the House Republican caucus.

Currently, there are just 13 voting female Republican representatives in the House and 11 female Republican incumbents who ran for reelection in 2020.

Read Also: Who Controls The Senate

Were Also On Social Media

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These Two Charts Show The Lack Of Diversity In The House And Senate

Both chambers of Congress are largely composed of white people.

But the number of nonwhite lawmakers has gradually increased in the House at a faster rate than in the Senate.

The 116th Congress overall is the most diverse since 1930, according to a CNBC visualization of data from the Brookings Institution.;

The House has become more diverse at a faster rate than the Senate, a CNBC analysis shows, but both chambers are still predominantly white.;

The number of nonwhite lawmakers has gradually increased in the House at a faster rate than in the Senate.;

Congress overall is the most diverse it’s ever been, according to a CNBC visualization of data from the Brookings Institution.;

In the House and Senate, at least 114 lawmakers are either African American, Asian or Hispanic, meaning that more than 1 in 5 lawmakers in the 116th Congress is a person of color and nearly 8 in 10 are white.

The data also shows there are far more Democratic than Republican people of color.;

Here is a breakdown of the number of people in Congress by race:

African American: 53 representatives, 3 senators

Asian American: 12 representatives, 3 senators;

Hispanic American: 39 representatives, 4 senators

Since 1870, 162 African Americans have served in Congress, according to congressional data from EveryCRSReport.com. Of those, 152 have served in the House while nine have served in the Senate. One has served in both chambers.

But about 79% of Congress is white, according to the Brookings data.

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Liz Matory Loses To Dutch Ruppersberger

Columbia University and Howard University grad Liz Matory is a small-business owner and a writer. Sheâs also a former Democrat who ran her latest campaign as a pro-Trump reformer and a âborn-again Republicanâ saying she wanted to help the populist president âdrain the swamp.â

In 2014, Matory ran to represent Montgomery County in the Maryland House of Delegates as a Democrat, but she came in last place, according to the Baltimore Post-Examiner. A year later she switched parties after serving as a field organizer for failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown, who lost his bid against Republican Larry Hogan, the stateâs current governor.

This time around, Matory couldnât defeat long-term incumbent Dutch Ruppersberger in a district Ruppersberger has served since 2003, according to the Washington Post.

[skydancer610-blog]

EARTH ONE CALLING: DISSECTING THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE OF TRUMP’S GOP

Dear GOP:

• You can no longer lecture us about divisiveness, or lambaste the Democrats foR “playing politics” when your warped media ecosystem has disseminated the very GOP talking points that have routinely tarred and feathered anyone left of Karl Rove on the daily for the past three decades.

• You can no longer drone on about why we should not prosecute your dearly departed Fuhrer "For the good of the country" when your elected representatives are focused only on their own narrow self-preservation and fund-raising. Let’s face it: you don’t give a shit about this country. If you did, you would have stood up to a president who has been actively destroying it for five years.

• You can no longer posture about unity or bipartisanship, especially when Trump’s GOP just spent four years exhibiting telltale fascist tendencies in the dogged pursuit of one-party rule, all the while waging a holy war on the main institutions entrusted with discovery and discernment of truth: the media, the judiciary, science, and education.

• You can no longer plead for civility on the part of Democrats when your representatives and media have spent decades shouting down anyone who isn’t on their side (here's looking at you Jim Jordan). And you especially can no longer lecture us about civility in the aftermath of your own supporters openly advocating-and then enacting-Civil War in the failed 1/6 fascist coup designed to keep your exalted Dear Loser as President.

• You can no longer shout from the top your soap boxes about leftist extremists, radicals, socialism, or communism when your party has veered so far to the right over the last three decades that it now teeters on the edge of a nihilist rightward cliff, about to plunge into full-on fascism.

• You can no longer lecture us about the dangers of violent Antifa and BLM protesters, especially given that a) over 95% of BLM protests were peaceful, b) so-called ”lone wolf” assailants have committed horrific acts of violence (i.e. racially motivated mass shootings) in the name of Donald Trump, and especially c) thousands of Trump supporters committed an act of mob violence on 1/6 so heinous that it has traumatized an entire nation and many of its duly elected Congressional representatives, Be there Republican or Democrat.

• You can no longer claim to be the party of "Law and order.” Don't even try it. Not when the leader of your party is a career criminal who spent the entirety of his presidency rigging the legal system to avoid consequences for his neverending litany of crimes, including Bank and tax fraud, conspiring with Russia to get elected, conspiring to withhold much-needed aid from Ukraine unless their president would ”dome a favor though,” committing election fraud in a call with the Georgia secretary of state, and especially for knowingly inciting the violent insurrection that resulted in over 140 law enforcement officers injured and three dead. Add to this Bill Barr’s politicization of the judiciary, the systematic rigging of our legal system at every level, and the countless Trump administration officials who were caught red-handed violating Federal laws and ethical standards, we need to call the GOP what it is: a lawless party led by angry White men to whom the laws of the land do not apply, and whose nakedly partisan judicial Philosophy has become “the law is whatever I say it is.”

• You certainly can no longer continue to demonize the mainstream media, facts and evidence-based reporting as "fake news", particularly since you have created a parallel media universe whose very existence demands that the brains of your legions of supporters must remain steeped in a toxic cesspool of mendacious venom in which warped talking-head drivel has wholly supplanted the reporting of actual news.

• You can no longer continue to channel Reagan’s dictum about how “government I s the problem,” especially since it has become glaringly obvious that most Republican politicians have no interest in governing to begin with, save for overfunding our military and police, under my name a woman’s right to choose, and squandering precious time and resources on such pressing matters as trans bathroom access and an umpteenth hearing on Benghazi. Once elected, GOP legislators routinely produces budgets that starve government agencies of funding, effectively reducing them to the status of a broke and emaciated pauper begging for spare change. These agencies are offered up as sacrifices to the God of lower taxes. Your anti-government rhetoric has thus morphed into a self-filling prophecy: you spout tired talking points that demonize government, then you get elected and cripple government, only to proclaim "look ma, government doesn’t work anymore". Aside from culture wars, your “Governing” it is not limited to gerrymandering, voter suppression, raising funds to get re-elected, and lining the pockets of your rich cronies. As our country rots away and the public good deteriorates, it is not a stretch to suggest that YOU have become the problem.

• You definitely can no longer claim the mantle of pro-life, not when you denounce science, support the death penalty, oppose access to healthcare, restrict funding for social services, and rationalize away the murder of Black Americans by an increasingly militarized police force. Truth be told, yours is a party that has become decidedly anti-life during the pandemic, first by downplaying the severity of COVID, then refusing to wear masks in the face of a deadly pandemic that has now killed roughly 1 in 700 Americans. Add to this a presidential administration that knowingly lied to the public about the risk posed by the coronavirus, and then systematically failed to address it. President Trump opted instead to corrupt the CDC and wage a public relations campaign rather than performing the necessary governmental function of tackling this deadly disease.

• You can no longer position yourself as the party of ”faith” and family values when you openly show hostility toward non-Christian religious and spiritual orientations, demonize entire races of putative “children of God,” or oppose expanding access to healthcare for families across the nation. Whatever God you are serving, it is certainly want for compassion. Additionally, your politicians and conservative media ritually engage in bad faith arguments in lieu of addressing to the many problems that plague our nation.

• You can no longer drone on about patriotism, or label some Americans as patriotic and others as unpatriotic when you have blindly supported and enabled a President who openly conspired with Russia to get elected, and who unflinchingly professed blind loyalty to the leader of the most hostile foreign power facing the US today. When confronted with credible evidence that the Russian autocrat put bounties on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan, Trump even refused to hold Putin accountable. Seriously. And of course you can no longer call yourself patriotic when you fan the flames of the Great Lie of a stolen election that gave rise to the seditious assault on the Capitol on 1/6. Then 86% of the GOP Senate Caucus voted to acquit Trump on charges that he incited the insurrection. Let's face it: you only hide behind the flag when it provides you political cover.

• Most importantly, you can NEVER lecture Democrats and their supporters about accountability, or responsibility, or pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, or traffic in tired caricatures of crime-plagued inner cities and welfare moms. Why? Because the deficit always increases during Republican presidential administrations. Because Congress passed a tax act that will cost American taxpayers $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Because the GOP has shifted from being a party that believes in small government to a party that has ceased even trying to govern. Because the Republican Congressional Caucus fecklessly supported an administration that did virtually nothing about the pandemic, except to claim it was just another hoax, or to state that “one day it will just go away,” or to host super-spreader events in Tulsa and on the White House lawn. How many lives could have been saved by a serious and coordinated federal government response? No GOP, you are neither responsible nor accountable to anyone except the interests of yourselves, the wealthy, and corporate donors you serve.

But nowhere has Republican irresponsibility been more clearly on display then the 1/6 attack on the US Capitol, where the whole world saw a violent mob of conspiracy-driven Trump supporters wage a vicious terrorist assault on the most sacred hall of American democracy and civil parliamentary debate. It is clear that these insurrectionists were spurred on by the spread of the Great Lie that somehow a legitimately conducted election—one that was unsuccessfully challenged in 61 US court cases—had been stolen from their Dear Leader. The Great Lie was supported by the majority of the Republican House Caucus, a dozen US Senators, and a parallel media universe that has become as unhinged as the power-mad President Trump himself—who was visibly pleased as he watched the unrest unfold on live TV. But as the world watched in horror, the whole web of lies undergirding Trumpism was exposed, unraveled, and irrevocably shattered for all to see.

And yet, in the face of overwhelming evidence that Trump’s violent rhetoric led directly routinely insurrection, when the GOP finally had a chance to hold Trump accountable for his actions, 43 out of 50 Republican US senators punted. They abdicated their Constitutional duty to hold the President accountable for the most reprehensible violation of our democracy in our nation’s history. Although Minority leader Mitch McConnell was deeply troubled, and felt that Trump was directly responsible for the insurrection, he characteristically seized upon the wiggle room afforded by a technicality in order to weasel out of performing his Constitutional duty to prevent Trump from ever holding public office again. Like a grocery clerk telling a customer that quote that is not my department,” McConnell—who tried to thread the needle between retaining hi-dollar donors and appeasing Trump’s base��reasoned that the US criminal justice system that Trump just spent four years attacking and corrupting was the more appropriate forum in which to address the former President’s crimes. One can only hope. Finally, even though they amplified the lie that the November election was somehow stolen from the ex-president, it is safe to say that Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Fox News, Alex Jones and their ilk will never assume an iota of accountability or culpability for the nearly diabolical consequences of their words and actions.

• But the lack of Republican responsibility and accountability is most clearly embodied by President King Baby himself. True to form, despite issuing a vitriolic speech that explicitly and repeatedly called for the mob to “fight” for him, Trump claimed no responsibility for inciting the directly consequential insurrection for which he was impeached a second time. Predictably, Trump wrung his hands of this. Moreover, to hear him tell it, it is safe to s ay that Trump has never done anything wrong and never feels the need to atone for anything. Predictably, like many rich and powerful White American men—over the course of his life the silver spoon-fed Trump has seldom had to face the consequences of his actions.

• No GOP, you can no longer do any of these things anywhere that serious people frequent and the pursuit of truth is held to be sacrosanct. You’re probably just have been revoked. 1/6 and its aftermath shall go down in American history the pivotal moment in which your entire parallel universe of bullshit was finally exposed, and where the web of lies upon which it has been built was irretrievably refuted. It is now time to hold you accountable for your systematic, longstanding, and wholesale war on facts, truth, reason, rational discourse, and even reality itself. So no more false equivalencies, whataboutism, both-sides-ism, performative outrage, disingenuous spin, or just plain bald-faced outright lies. This is not simply a matter of opinion. The lies that you have perpetrated and propagated have had deadly consequences, be they for victims of hate crimes, the many people of color murdered by police forces, or the countless additional deaths due to coronavirus misinformation, or the death of three Capital police officers.

• But the GOP will continue to do all of these things and more because their very existence depends on it. Additionally, Fox News, OAN, Newsmax have way too much invested in their viewers for that to ever happen. The disinfo-meter must be cranked up to eleven, because the conservative media ecosystem has reached a point of no return. To call bullshit on their game now would me more than assuming responsibility: it would mean that the whole web of lies upon which the identities and worldviews of those who inhabit the parallel universe of conservative media would have to be debunked. The mass cult of Trumpism-which extends far beyond QAnon-would have to be painstakingly deprogrammed and deradicalized. The fascist White supremacist elements of Red America—including those in our government, military, and law enforcement—would somehow have to come back from the nether reaches of 8chan and Parler to the ostensibly objective, fact-based reality inhabited by the sane. A massive media literacy campaign and cultural inoculation against demonstrable bullshit would be needed, maybe even a wholesale cultural the programming would become necessary. In the meantime, the only way to combat the parallel universe of Trump’s GOP is by holding people accountable in the pursuit of truth and justice—by shedding light upon lies, crimes, misdeeds, and the pathological creation and dissemination of a hostile alternate reality that continues to threaten to tear our country apart.

[meetnategreen]

The Republican Party has Made No Secret of Their Hatred for the United States Federal Government, and the Nation’s Democracy, Integrity or Accountability.

After 8 years of sexually harassing, demeaning and degrading one Secretary, and blocking all the efforts made by one President to rebuild the country’s collapsing infrastructure, invest in unrestricted access to education and healthcare, support American’s veterans, or pay for America’s Petro-imperialist oil wars... A generation of Republican Temporary Employees will be collecting their annual retirement check of $200,000, along with full federal health insurance and for life.

Here is a List of Traitors and Collaborators Responsible for Putting President Putin in control of the White House, Supreme Court and State Department.

Senate Republicans Retiring Outright

Bob Corker, Tennessee

2016 presidential election:     +26.15 Trump

2012 Senate election: +34.6     Corker 

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opted against running for a third term and promptly intensified his criticism of the president, whom he had praised during the election. Trump alleged that Corker “begged” for his endorsement, while Corker said it was Trump who urged him to run again.

Jeff Flake, Arizona

2016 presidential election:     +3.57 Trump

2012 Senate election: +3.9     Flake

He decided to leave after a single term rather than wage what would have been a brutal fight for reelection, first in a primary against a hard-right Trump backer, Kelli Ward, and then, if he won, against a centrist Democrat, Representative Kyrsten Sinema, in the general election. Flake had lost his base in Arizona: His criticism of Trump in his recent book, Conscience of a Conservative, alienated the president’s GOP backers, while his conservative voting record put off Democrats.

Orrin Hatch, Utah

2016 presidential election:     +17.9 Trump over Hillary Clinton; +23.8 Trump over Evan McMullin

2012 Senate election: +35     Hatch

The 83-year-old incumbent announced in a video message in early January that he will not seek reelection next year, creating an opening for a possible Senate bid by Mitt Romney. With seven terms under his belt, Hatch is the longest-serving Republican in the Senate. He also serves as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

House Republicans Retiring Outright

Bob Goodlatte, Virginia 6th district

2016 presidential election:     +24.8 Trump

2016 House election: +33.56     Goodlatte

Goodlatte was nearing the end of his third and final term as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, where he aligned with conservative hard-liners on immigration and voting rights. He advanced bipartisan legislation on criminal-justice reform, but it never reached the House floor.

Jeb Hensarling, Texas 5th district

2016 presidential election:     +28.4 Trump

2016 House election: +61.21     Hensarling

Hensarling left the House leadership team in 2013 to head up the Financial Services Committee, and he passed up opportunities to make a conservative bid for speaker. His chairmanship will end because of term limits, but it was also marked by frustration: Hensarling’s proposals to wind down federal mortgage-lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as his overhaul of the federal flood-insurance program, proved too conservative to pass the full House.

Rodney Frelinghuysen, New Jersey 11th district

2016 presidential election:     +0.9 Trump

2016 House election: +19.15     Frelinghuysen

Frelinghuysen arrived in Washington with the Republican wave of 1994 and only reached the pinnacle of his career in 2017, when he became chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. But he has faced criticism from conservatives for voting against major GOP legislation, and he was facing the race of his life this fall in a highly competitive district. His retirement gives Democrats a seat they should pick up if they’re going to reclaim the majority.

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 4th district

2016 presidential election:     +25.7 Trump

2016 House election: +36.21     Gowdy

Despite rising quickly up the ranks of House Republicans, Gowdy had made no secret of his dissatisfaction serving in Congress, and in January he announced he would give up the chairmanship of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after less than a year. He’ll return to the justice system, where he served as a federal prosecutor.

Darrell Issa, California 49th district

2016 presidential election:     +7.5 Clinton

2016 House election: +0.52     Issa

Issa in January became one of the most recognizable House Republicans to announce his retirement. A former chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he served as the chief congressional inquisitor of the Obama administration for several years. Issa is annually ranked as one of the wealthiest members of Congress, having co-founded the company behind the Viper car alarm (for which he famously provided the voice). But he was in for the fight of his life to win reelection after nearly losing in 2016 in a district that Hillary Clinton carried over Donald Trump.

Joe Barton, Texas 6th district

2016 presidential election:     +12.3 Trump

2016 House election: +19.31     Barton

The dean of Texas’s large Republican delegation, Barton was planning to seek a 17th term before lewd texts and photos he had sent to women with whom he had extramarital affairs leaked online. During the course of his long career in Congress, he served as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Lamar Smith, Texas 21st district

2016 presidential election:     +10.00 Trump

2016 House election: +20.56     Smith

His is another term-limits retirement. An arch-conservative first elected in 1986, Smith likely would have had nowhere higher to go after finishing his tenure as chairman of the Space, Science, and Technology Committee, which he used to fight policies and funding to combat climate change.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida 27th district

2016 presidential election:     +19.6 Clinton

2016 House election: +9.79     Ros-Lehtinen 

A former chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Ros-Lehtinen never endorsed Trump and became one of his most vocal GOP critics in Congress. She retires after 28 years in the House. As a moderate, she voted frequently against top Republican priorities, including Obamacare repeal and the budget. Her South Florida district now becomes a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats.

Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania 15th district

2016 presidential election:     +7.6 Trump

2016 House election: +19.63     Dent

As co-chairman of the moderate Tuesday Group in the House, Dent was one of his party’s most vocal critics, often voicing his frustration either with the president or the influence of the conservative Freedom Caucus in steering legislation to the right. He said the lack of a governing coalition in Congress contributed to his decision to retire after seven terms.

Dave Reichert, Washington state 8th district

2016 presidential election:     +3.00 Clinton

2016 House election:     uncontested

A former leader of the Tuesday Group, Reichert is another moderate retiring after seven terms. Though he won his recent elections easily, his district was once one of the most competitive in the nation and could be again next year.

Pat Tiberi, Ohio 12th district

2016 presidential election:     +11.3 Trump

2016 House election: +36.73     Tiberi

Whereas others on this list retired after being term-limited out of committee chairmanships, Tiberi’s decision may have more to do with a post he never won. The veteran Ohio Republican lost out to Kevin Brady of Texas in his bid to lead the Ways and Means Committee after Paul Ryan left the job to become speaker. Tiberi was a close ally of former Speaker John Boehner, and he, too, became frustrated with the dysfunction in Congress. He won’t serve out the rest of his term, choosing instead to take a job as president of the Ohio Business Roundtable early next year.

Frank LoBiondo, New Jersey 2nd district

2016 presidential election:     +4.6 Trump

2016 House election: +21.99     LoBiondo

LoBiondo’s retirement after 12 terms gives Democrats a major pickup opportunity in New Jersey. First elected in the Republican wave of 1994, he broke with his party to oppose Obamacare-repeal legislation, the GOP budget, and the tax bill.

Lynn Jenkins, Kansas 2nd district

2016 presidential     election:  +18.4 Trump

2016 House election: +28.38     Jenkins

Jenkins’ announcement in January that she would not seek a sixth term in the House was one of the earliest and most surprising of the Republican retirements. She had served in the House leadership and was mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate in Kansas, but she said she would not run for any office in 2018.

Sam Johnson, Texas 3rd district

2016 presidential election:     +14.2 Trump

2016 House election: +26.63     Johnson

Johnson is revered in the House for his Air Force service in both Korea and Vietnam, where he was held—and tortured—as a prisoner of war for seven years. The 87-year-old is retiring from a safe Republican seat after more than a quarter-century in Congress.

John Duncan Jr., Tennessee 2nd district

2016 presidential election:     +35.4 Trump

2016 House election: +51.29     Duncan Jr.

Duncan will have served in the House for 30 years by the time he leaves next year. Though he votes with Republicans on domestic issues, he opposed the Iraq War and supports a non-interventionist foreign policy. His district should be an easy hold for Republicans.

Ted Poe, Texas 2nd district

2016 presidential election:     +9.3 Trump

2016 House election: +24.26     Poe

Now in his seventh term, Poe is a former Houston judge known for ending each of his floor speeches with a variation on Walter Cronkite’s longtime sign-off, “And that’s just the way it is.” He was diagnosed with leukemia in 2016.

Dave Trott, Michigan 11th district

2016 presidential election:     +4.4 Trump

2016 House election: +12.76     Trott

Trott was a first-time candidate when he won his seat in the House in 2014. He decided he preferred the private sector, however, announcing in September that he would return home after just two terms.

Tim Murphy, Pennsylvania 18th district

2016 presidential election:     +19.6 Trump

2016 House election:     uncontested

Murphy resigned the seat he held for 15 years in October after it was revealed that he allegedly asked a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair to get an abortion. Reports that he presided over a toxic work culture in his House office soon followed. A special election to fill his seat will be held on March 13.

Trent Franks, Arizona 8th district

2016 presidential election:     +21.1 Trump

2016 House election: +37.13     Franks

Franks is leaving for perhaps the most unusual reason: He abruptly announced in December that he would resign after acknowledging that he had asked two members of his staff to carry his and his wife’s child as surrogates, making them “uncomfortable.” His announcement came on the same day as the House Ethics Committee said it was opening an investigation into the situation.

Blake Farenthold, Texas 27th district

2016 presidential election:     +23.6 Trump  

2016 House election: +23.39     Farenthold

Farenthold announced he would not seek a fifth term after several former staffers accused him of harassment and of verbally abusive behavior in his congressional office. He initially resisted pressure to bow out even after the House Ethics Committee opened a new inquiry into his alleged behavior.

Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania 9th district

2016 presidential election:     +42.5 Trump

2016 House election: +26.68     Shuster

Shuster, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, announced in early January that he’ll spend 2018 on developing an infrastructure plan instead of running for reelection. “I thought it was the best decision for me to focus 100 percent on my final year as the chairman of the Transportation Committee, working with the president and other Democrats and Republicans to pass an infrastructure bill, which is much needed to rebuild America,” he told The Washington Examiner. Shuster first won election to the House in 2001.

Gregg Harper, Mississippi 3rd district

2016 presidential election:     +24.5 Trump

2016 House election: +35.83     Harper

Harper, the chairman of the House Administration Committee, said he made the decision not to seek reelection over the holidays. “I never intended for this to be a career, and it will soon be time for another conservative citizen legislator to represent us,” he said in a statement in early January. Harper’s committee has recently received a great deal of attention as the panel charged with addressing sexual harassment in the lower chamber. The five-term congressman joins a number of other Republican committee chairmen who are stepping down.

Ed Royce, California 39th district

2016 presidential election:     +8.6 Clinton

2016 House election: +14.46     Royce

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Royce is yet another committee leader who chose retirement over a return to the back bench once his tenure with the gavel was up. Royce will finish his 13th term in 2018, and his departure creates a top pick-up opportunity for Democrats in Southern California.

Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania 7th district

2016 presidential election:     +2.3 Clinton

2016 House election: +18.93     Meehan

Meehan announced in January that he wouldn’t run for a fifth term following the revelation that he settled a claim of sexual harassment made against him by a former staffer. The House Ethics Committee—a panel of which Meehan was a member—had already begun an investigation, and the congressman acknowledged that he had developed a deep affection for the woman while denying improper behavior. His departure opens up a strong pick-up opportunity for Democrats in what was already a competitive district.

House Republicans Running for Higher Office in 2018

Diane Black, Tennessee 6th district

2016 presidential election:     +48.9 Trump

2016 House election: +49.29     Black

First elected in 2010, Black served this year as chairwoman of the House Budget Committee before deciding not to seek reelection and run for governor instead. With the 2018 budget finally adopted, she may leave her seat early to focus on her next campaign.

Luke Messer, Indiana 6th district

2016 presidential election:     +40.3 Trump

2016 House election: +42.44     Messer

Now serving his third term in the House, Messer is facing off against fellow Indiana Representative Todd Rokita in a primary for the right to challenge Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly. He represents the seat once held by Vice President Mike Pence.

Todd Rokita, Indiana 4th district

2016 presidential election:     +34.1 Trump

2016 House election: +34.12     Rokita

Rokita entered Congress one term before Messer. He made a brief bid for governor in 2016 after Pence was named as Donald Trump’s running mate, but he was able to retain his House seat after Republicans picked Lieutenant Governor Eric Holcomb. He won’t have that luxury if he loses the Senate race because the primaries for the Senate and House are on the same day.

Steve Pearce, New Mexico 2nd district

2016 presidential election:     +10.2 Trump

2016 House election: +25.48     Pearce

After serving two separate stints covering seven terms in the House, the conservative Pearce is running to succeed Susana Martinez as governor of New Mexico. Republicans remain favored to keep his House seat.

Raul Labrador, Idaho 1st district

2016 presidential election:     +38.3 Trump

2016 House election: +36.36     Labrador

Labrador defeated a GOP establishment-backed candidate in a 2010 primary before beating a centrist Democratic incumbent during the Tea Party wave that November. His decision to run for governor may be a blessing for GOP leaders, as he was a frequent conservative critic and member of the House Freedom Caucus during his tenure. Republicans should hold his seat easily next year.

Jim Renacci, Ohio 16th district

2016 presidential election:     +16.6 Trump

2016 House election: +30.66     Renacci

One of the wealthiest members of Congress, Renacci originally announced plans to leave the House after four terms to run for governor of Ohio. But in January he decided to run for Senate instead after a leading Republican candidate, Josh Mandel, withdrew from that race.

Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania 11th district

2016 presidential election:     +23.8 Trump

2016 House election: +27.34 Barletta

Barletta was a Trump Republican before Trump and became one of the first to endorse the president’s campaign. A longtime crusader against illegal immigration, his Senate candidacy challenging Democratic incumbent Bob Casey will be a test of Trump’s brand in a formerly blue state that the president flipped red in 2016. Though it was held by a Democrat until Barletta won it in 2010, the 11th district is not currently expected to be competitive in the 2018 general election.

Kristi Noem, South Dakota at-large

2016 presidential election:     +29.79 Trump

2016 House election: +28.21     Noem

Noem defeated Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in one of the closest races in the 2010 Republican wave. She’s giving up her House seat to run for governor, and Democrats will have a tough time winning it back.

Evan Jenkins, West Virginia 3rd district

2016 presidential election:     +49.2 Trump

2016 House election: +43.91     Jenkins

Jenkins knocked off one West Virginia Democrat, Nick Rahall, to win his House seat in 2014. He’ll try to beat another, Senator Joe Manchin, in 2018. As with many of the seats Republicans are giving up to run for higher office, the 3rd district is less favorable to Democrats than it used to be.

Ron DeSantis, Florida 6th district

2016 presidential election:     +17.0 Trump

2016 House election: +17.13     DeSantis

A conservative in his third term, DeSantis announced in January he would run for governor, not Congress, in 2018. His decision came just a couple weeks after Trump offered him an unexpected endorsement in a pre-Christmas tweet.

Martha McSally, Arizona 2nd district

2016 presidential election:     +4.9 Clinton

2016 House election: +13.92     McSally

McSally launched her long-expected Senate campaign in January for the seat Jeff Flake is vacating. Serving her second term in the House, she had become famous as the first American woman to fly in combat during the 1990s. Republicans leaders see her as the best candidate to hold the Senate seat, but her departure gives Democrats another strong pick-up opportunity in the House.

Art by Hector Silva

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Steve Breen :: @SteveBreen100

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 16, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 17, 2024

On Sunday, April 14, 2024, Iran fired about 170 drones, more than 120 ballistic missiles, and more than 30 cruise missiles from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and areas controlled by Hezbollah in Lebanon toward Israel. The strike was in retaliation for a strike on Iran’s diplomatic complex in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, which killed two top commanders in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, along with other officials. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the Syrian strike, but officials from other countries believe Israel is responsible. Iran warned its attack was coming, and Israel and the U.S., along with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and France, shot the missiles down. Israel sustained almost no damage. One Arab-Israeli girl was critically injured.

In the leadup to the attack, Arab countries shared intelligence and radar tracking, opened their airspace while closing it to Iran, and even supplied forces to withstand Iran’s attack. According to David S. Cloud, Dov Lieber, Stephen Kalin, and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal, in March 2022, top military officials from Israel and Arab countries met in Egypt at the invitation of U.S. Marine General Frank McKenzie, then the top U.S. commander in the region, to discuss coordination against Iran’s growing military capabilities.  

That prospective coordination had never been tested, but the fact that Arab states stood alongside Israel against Iran highlights changing dynamics in the Middle East. In the aftermath of the attack, a source connected to the Saudi royal family charged Iran with instigating the Gaza war to stop normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon are Iran’s proxies.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250 others, President Joe Biden’s apparent top priority has been making sure the crisis doesn’t spread. On October 10, he warned: “to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t. Don’t.” 

The U.S. moved two of its eleven carrier battle groups, which usually consist of an aircraft carrier, at least four other ships, and about 7,500 personnel, to the region. At the same time, while Biden has been careful to note that the U.S. cannot dictate policy to another country, he warned Israel against a planned preemptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The U.S. has also led the effort to stop Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen from attacking ships in the Red Sea. The attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing ships to reroute around Africa. 

Since the early days of the conflict, the approach of Israel’s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to destroying Hamas has caused a deepening rift with the Biden administration. While the U.S. supports Israel’s right to self-defense and “legitimate military objectives,” it has repeatedly called out mounting Palestinian civilian casualties. Then, while the administration has consistently called for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the plan for a postwar settlement Netanyahu finally proposed in February rejected that policy and instead called for Israel to maintain military control of Gaza indefinitely. 

Increasingly, the Israeli government has rejected U.S. requests to protect civilian lives, including by allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza, where people are starving. After a brief humanitarian pause in fighting in November, efforts to achieve another pause to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza have failed repeatedly. Frustration in the U.S. over mounting civilian deaths and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has led to widespread protests against Biden as well as against Israel, and has led Democratic critics of Israeli policy to demand that the U.S. condition military aid to Israel on a ceasefire. 

Tensions rose higher when Israel announced it would launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, without a plan for protecting civilians. More than a million Palestinians have taken shelter there. In March, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that the president would not support “a military operation in Rafah that does not protect civilians, that cuts off the main arteries of humanitarian assistance and that places enormous pressure on the Israel-Egypt border.”

Israel did not notify the U.S. when on April 1 it attacked the Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria, a strike U.S. defense officials believed put U.S. forces at risk. Also on April 1, Israeli forces killed seven aid workers—including individuals from Australia, Poland, and the United Kingdom, as well as a Palestinian and a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen—with the humanitarian aid group World Central Kitchen. The workers had coordinated with the military and were in three separate marked vehicles.

On April 3, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directly called out Israel’s silence about its attack on Iranian leaders in Syria in a telephone call to his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

On April 4, in a telephone call, Biden told Netanyahu that “the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable.” He said Israel must “announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.” He reiterated support for Israel but appeared to distinguish between Israel and its current government. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was on the call, told a reporter: "The president made clear we will make sure Israel isn't left without the ability to defend itself. At the same time, if there are no changes to their approach, we are likely to change our approach.”

Israel has pointed to the inefficient distribution of aid within Gaza as a cause of hardship, but three hours after the call, Israel announced that it would open the Erez crossing into northern Gaza for the first time since October 7, use the Port of Ashdod in Israel as a hub for supplies, and allow more Gaza-bound aid trucks into Israel from Jordan. Days later, Israeli officials dropped the plan to open Erez, and the Ashdod port is not yet accepting aid shipments; Defense Minister Gallant said, “We plan to flood Gaza with aid and we are expecting to reach 500 trucks per day,” but he did not say when that would happen.

While this was taking place, according to the four Wall Street Journal reporters, the administration pressed Arab states for intelligence about a retaliatory strike from Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia shared intelligence, and Jordan allowed warplanes to use its airspace while also intercepting Iranian missiles with its own planes. The White House coordinated Israeli and Arab defensive measures. According to U.S. officials, officials from the State Department, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council were “in constant, ongoing, continuous contact with Israelis, with other partners in the region, as well as Iran with a series of direct communications through the Swiss channel and other relevant players,” as well as with “Turkey and China,” “in anticipation of the events that transpired.”

This was the background when Iran attacked Israel on Sunday. 

In the aftermath of the attack, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said, “The matter can be deemed concluded.” The White House immediately gathered the leaders of the Group of 7 wealthy democracies, who issued a statement calling on all parties to “avoid further escalation.” Then Biden urged Netanyahu to “think very carefully and strategically” about retaliation and noted that Israel had “got the best of it,” as it had killed senior Iranian military commanders but lost none of its own leaders. Netanyahu is under great pressure from his right-wing coalition to retaliate, but some members of his war cabinet have stressed that they want “to establish an international coalition and strategic alliance to counter the threat posed by Iran.”

The U.S. warned Israel it would not participate in any offensive counterstrike against Iran, although it has announced new economic sanctions against Iran. Matt Bradley of NBC News pointed out that an aggressive Israeli response would run the risk of dissolving the fragile cooperation between Arab states and Israel that helped to repel the Iranian attack. That cooperation illustrated that Iran is increasingly isolated, but as Oraib Al Rantawi, director of a Jordanian think tank, told Bradley, “Those Arab countries are in a very critical situation. There is no easy position to take….” 

In the U.S., Republicans, including House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner (R-OH) and Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, immediately said the U.S. should join Israel if it launched a retaliatory attack, saying they hoped to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. (David Sanger of the New York Times reminded readers yesterday that in 2015, in a deal with seven countries after two years of negotiations, Iran agreed to surrender 97% of its uranium, but Trump pulled out of that deal in 2018, and Iran returned to developing weapons-grade uranium.) 

In the House, Republicans who have been refusing to pass the national security supplemental bill that provides additional funding for Ukraine and Israel, as well as the Indo-Pacific and humanitarian aid to Gaza, have suddenly snapped to and are demanding additional funding for Israel. A researcher at an Israeli think tank estimated the cost of Israel’s interception of the Iranian weapons on Sunday at more than $550 million.

The Senate passed the measure in February, and the House is expected to as well if House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) brings it up for a vote. But Johnson is facing a revolt from MAGA Republicans who are so adamantly opposed to aiding Ukraine they threatened to oust him as speaker if he tries to pass it. Yesterday, Johnson said he would break the measure up and try to pass it in four pieces. Extremists don’t like this either. Two Republicans—Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kentucky’s Thomas Massie—have said they will challenge Johnson’s speakership, meaning that Johnson will have to rely on Democratic votes not only to pass an aid measure, but also to keep his speakership. 

The House is due to recess from Thursday, April 18, until Monday, April 29. This afternoon, House Intelligence Committee chair Turner and the top Democrat on the committee, Jim Himes (D-CT), released a statement: “We must pass Ukraine aid now,” they wrote. “Today, in a classified briefing, our Committee was informed of the critical need to provide Ukraine military aid this week. The United States must stand against Putin’s war of aggression now as Ukraine’s situation on the ground is critical.” 

Today the House finally delivered impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate, two months after approving them, and demanded a full trial.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tomorrowusa]

The GOP-run House of Representatives has been without a Speaker since Tuesday 03 October 2023.

In Ukraine, Ruslan Stefanchuk (Руслан Стефанчук) has been Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Верховна Рада) since 08 October 2021. He got the position just one day after his predecessor had been voted out by the ruling Sluha Narodu Party over policy differences. By comparison, it's about three weeks since Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the Speaker's chair.

So this is another reason why the House Putin Caucus doesn't like Ukraine – its national parliament make them look like even bigger fools.

Speaking of Ukraine, there is still a war going on there against Putin's genocidal invaders. If the blanket coverage of the Middle East has kept you from hearing the latest on Ukraine, here's an opportunity to catch up on the last few days. It's mostly good news. 🇺🇦

A secret weapons delivery and a cross-river raid: Here's what to know about the latest in Ukraine

[ramrodd]

What do you think of the following statement:  If Trump said chickens could plow they would be out in the field hitching them up?

COMMENTARY:

Of course, they’d hitch up the hens and put the rooster in the lead position and tell’em “Giddy-UP” and gee and haw their way around their trailer park flower beds until the chickens either learnet to enjoy plowing in trace or dropped dead.

You are dealing with really stupid people who have the right to vote because they have birth cirtificates that assures the republican authorities that they are eligible by species to vote. And the really clever pick of the litter in every generation Newt Gingrich has gone out of his way to recruit as glorified telemarketers elected to promote Steve Bannon’s Free Market Fascism and to blow up America like John Galt and/or Earl Turner. These are the same stupid people who put their hearts and souls into the southern rebellion led by the same greedy people who were making too much money from slavery to kick the habit. They are still running things in all the Red States as Jeff Davis in Richmond VA.

There is no question in my mind that Trump said exactly what he said about the military. He is typical of the Copperhead wing of the GOP. They really don’t belong to anybody except as honary members of Galt’s Gang, alleged libertarians who devise a personal system of values based on an infinitely small point of law or western ethics that justifiees their avarice, selfishness and, in the case of the Copperheads, political treachery. These are the people Newt Gingrich recruited as pawns in his political strategy to make him Speaker of the House and, currently, to re-elect Trump.

Every Republican but Mitt Romney in Congress falls into this category. Tim Scott is like J.C. Watts, Herman Caine, Ben Carson and Clarence Thomas, an equal opportunity bigot and actually belongs in the adult leadership of the GOP with Mitt Romney: they are authentic Conservatives in close to the Juan Williams mold of Conservative: Juan Williams has always been a BLM Conservative, which is why the Koch bothers threatened to withhold their grants to PBS unless Diane Rehm fired his ass from WAMU for being uppity.

In Indiana, when I was growing up, there were Lugar-Will Rogers Repubicans and Lee Hamilton-Walter Ruether Democrats and Dan Burton-Henry Cabot Lodge-KKK-Copperheads, the people who vetoed the League of Nations and largely had other priorites than military service during WWII, which might have been avoided if the League of Nations had been ratified. Dan Burton Copperheads are all in for the Military Industrial Complex and, like Marxist, consider lethal conflict to be a natural feature of capitalism. They all believe, like Trump, that people are suckers and losers to enlist in the US military and that a military career is like being a counselor in a summer camp that you do before you grow up and get a real job.

And that’s who Newty recruited to fill up the Republican Study Group and the House Freedom Caucus in order to advance his agenda of political treason and economic coup. Gingrich’s axiomatic discription of his political strategy, “Politics is the continuation of war” is Trotsky’s formular for violent revolution he, Trotsky, was teaching in Mexico when he was killed. Castro’s Cuba was one legacy of Trotsky’s evangelism and Newty has been using this formula to gain power since he went into poltics during the 70s.

Newty claims he adopted the political strategy of the anti-war movement, which is partially true, as the model for his political strategy. Newty and I are both Army brats and, at the time we were growing up, Counter-Insurgency was the sexy career path for West Point graduates, especially before JKF was killed. I had read Petreaus’s core bibliography for his CO-IN manual before I graduated from high school and I had a ring side seat to the cultural revolution on campus without belonging to either the liberal fascism of the anti-war draft dodgers or the conservative fascism of the pro-war draft dodgers (who were, essentially, the rising generation of Dan Burton Copperheads).

And they are all, basically, the paradox of the very clever and dumber than a box of rocks small town white businessman and/or politician. Like Mike Pence. People who avoided the draft during the 60s and were the corporate gate keepers when combat vets came looking for work after killing the Viet Cong for Christ.

Their attitude, the people Newty recurited, was that, if you were too stupid to avoid military service, it didn’t make much sense to put you on the pay roll unless you were a rabid ammosexual and/or a Tom Cotton wannabe (Tom Cotton isn’t anything new, either: I was scared out of a military career by a senior officer my dad’s age and rank with the same crypto-Nazi cognitive organization as Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo and represent another catogory of Conservative Copperhead.

Trump is just like all these guys. As I say, they are a paradox: they usually have very strong practical talents in business and management and not necessarily authoritarian, but their horizons generally stop at the end of their peckers in predictable ways. Trump’s attitude about the military is one typical variation. They didn’t want to be held accountable by the League of Nations and they were perfectly happy becoming filthy rich and locally powerful from equiping the sacrifice of American citizen soldiers and feeling nobel in the process: the Arsenal of Democracy and all the rest. Trump really believes he’s a patriot in spite of the fact that he committed treason with his Moscow partners in the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant to get elected and hopes to do it again.

Putin has nothing to do with it. For Trump, business is business and treason is just another tool in his lie, cheat and steal “Art of the Deal” crime family business model. And, by and large, the Dan Burton Copperheads don’t have any problem with the practice: it’s nothing personal, Uncle Sam: it’s just business.

And all these Dan Burton Copperheads are the people who supply the harnesses for chicken plowing, partially because they don’t know any better, themselves, but recognize an emerging market when it surfaces.

For various reasons, the military has been content to allow themselves to be pulled around by their collective peckers by these people, the Dan Burton Copperheads, because they, the military, sustain the misapprehension that what “Honor” means to them means the same to crime family businessmen, like Don Corleone. And it doesn’t. And they, the active military, have been voting for Don Corleone “Honor” since at least the Democrats failed to finance the last death throes of the Republic of Vietnam on basically they same justification that Moscow Mitch is holding up Speaker Pelois’s $3.5 trillion capital budget for stopping COVID-19 in its tracks in 90 days and bringing the Green New Deal up to speed in 18 months.

Because, in the final analysis, as clever as the Dan Burton Copperheads like Moscow Mitch are in running a family bucket shop, they are dumber than dog shit when it comes to plowing with chickens.

[mariacallous]

A group of US congressional Democrats have urged president Joe Biden to pursue direct engagement with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, while still maintaining current military and economic commitments to Kyiv.

“Given the destruction created by this war for Ukraine and the world, as well as the risk of catastrophic escalation, we … believe it is in the interests of Ukraine, the United States, and the world to avoid a prolonged conflict,” the 30 Democratic members write in the letter to Biden.

“For this reason, we urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire”.

Among the 30 signatories to the letter are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, from the most progressive wing of the party, collectively known as “the squad”.

The letter was led by Representative Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the congressional Progressive Caucus.

“As legislators responsible for the expenditure of tens of billions of US taxpayer dollars in military assistance in the conflict, we believe such involvement in this war also creates a responsibility for the United States to seriously consider all possible avenues, including direct engagement with Russia,” they write.

Asked for comment, state department spokesperson Ned Price said: “Right now, we have heard from Ukrainian partners, repeatedly, that this war will only end through diplomacy and dialogue. We have not heard any reciprocal statement or refrain from Moscow that they are ready in good faith to engage in that diplomacy and dialogue.”

Washington has committed about $66bn for Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February, providing Kyiv with weapons and other military assistance, humanitarian aid and economic support.

The letter comes with just two weeks to go before the 8 November US midterm elections that will determine which party controls Congress.

Some Republicans have warned there could be tighter control of funding for Ukraine if their party wins control of Congress.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy recently said there will be no “blank check” for Ukraine if Republicans win control of the chamber from Biden’s fellow Democrats, raising concerns that Republicans might choke off Ukraine aid.

However, analysts said the party was more likely to slow it down or pare it back.

Disappointing but not totally surprising, and also something likely to provoke unease and discouragement among allies as well as give weight to Republicans and embolden Putin and his regime.

[bountyofbeads]

Trump Lashes Out on Syria as Republicans Strongly Rebuke Him in Vote https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/middleeast/trump-erdogan-turkey-syria-kurds.html

Trump Lashes Out on Syria as Republicans Rebuke Him in House Vote

President Trump again defends his decision to withdraw American troops, an order that many, including Republicans, have interpreted as acquiescing to Turkey’s incursion against a United States ally.

By Peter Baker and Catie Edmondson |

Published Oct. 16, 2019 Updated 8:38 PM ET | New York Times | Posted October 16, 2019 9:25 PM ET |

WASHINGTON — President Trump faced off against both parties in Congress on Wednesday in an extraordinary confrontation over his decision to abandon America’s Kurdish allies as the vast majority of House Republicans joined Democrats to condemn his policy in an overwhelming vote.

Mr. Trump found himself increasingly isolated after withdrawing troops from Syria and clearing the way for a Turkish offensive against Kurds who had fought alongside the United States. The president all but washed his hands of the conflict, saying that it “has nothing to do with us,” generating withering criticism from Republicans and leading to a stormy clash with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Bereft of supporters and under pressure from an impeachment inquiry, Mr. Trump spent much of the day defending his decision and lashing out against foes. He dismissed the Kurds, who until last week shared outposts with American soldiers, saying they were “no angels” and fought for money. And he berated Ms. Pelosi as a “third-grade politician” or “third-rate politician,” depending on the version, prompting Democrats to walk out of a White House meeting.

“I think now we have to pray for his health,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters afterward. “This was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president.” She said Mr. Trump seemed “very shaken up” by the cascade of criticism.

Mr. Trump said it was the other way around. “Nancy Pelosi needs help fast!” he wrote on Twitter. “She had a total meltdown in the White House today. It was very sad to watch. Pray for her, she is a very sick person!”

The collision in the Cabinet Room came shortly after the House voted 354 to 60 for a nonbinding resolution expressing opposition to Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon the Kurds, a measure that drew support from two-thirds of the House Republican caucus and all three of its top leaders. Senate Republicans spoke out individually on Wednesday, warning that Mr. Trump was courting “disaster,” as one put it.

The fireworks erupted as Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Robert C. O’Brien, the president’s new national security adviser, left for Turkey in an effort to persuade President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to agree to a cease-fire in Syria.

But Mr. Trump’s commitment to that diplomacy seemed in doubt as he declared that the United States had no real interest in the matter. “That has nothing to do with us,” he said. He said he could understand if Syria and Turkey want territory. “But what does that have to do with the United States of America if they’re fighting over Syria’s land?” he asked.

Mr. Trump dismissed concerns that his decision to pull back had opened the way for Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and the Islamic State to move into the abandoned territory and reassert influence in the area. “I wish them all a lot of luck,” Mr. Trump said of the Russians and Syrians. “If Russia wants to get involved with Syria, that’s really up to them,” he added.

Mr. Trump’s approach upended decades of American policy in the Middle East, a region presidents of both parties have considered vital to the United States. While many presidents have been reluctant to commit troops to conflicts there, they rarely brushed off the importance of the region’s disputes so dismissively nor accepted the influence of Russia or other hostile players so readily.

But Mr. Trump argued that he ran for president on a platform of ending “endless wars,” a pledge that resonated with many Americans tired of nearly two decades of overseas military operations. “Let them fight their own wars,” he said. “They’ve been fighting for 1,000 years. Let them fight their own wars.”

Critics in both parties condemned the president’s decision. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, opened his weekly news conference by expressing his “gratitude to the Kurds,” adding, “I’m sorry that we are where we are.”

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said that by sending Mr. Pence and Mr. Pompeo to Turkey, Mr. Trump was trying to fix a problem of his own creation, but too late.

“It’s very hard to understand why it is the vice president and secretary of state and others are going to talk with Erdogan and Turkey,” Mr. Romney told reporters. “It’s like the farmer who lost all his horses and goes to now shut the barn door.”

Mr. Trump got into an extended back and forth with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, normally among his closest allies but one of the sharpest opponent of his Syria decision.

“I hope President Trump is right in his belief that Turkey’s invasion of Syria is of no concern to us, abandoning the Kurds won’t come back to haunt us, ISIS won’t reemerge, and Iran will not fill the vacuum created by this decision,” Mr. Graham wrote on Twitter.

“However,” he added, “I firmly believe that if President Trump continues to make such statements this will be a disaster worse than President Obama’s decision to leave Iraq.”

The president pushed back against Mr. Graham later in the day, saying that the senator should be focusing on investigating Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponents, including former President Barack Obama. “The people of South Carolina don’t want us to get into a war with Turkey, a NATO member, or with Syria,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Graham then rebutted Mr. Trump again. “With all due respect for the president, I think I’m elected to have a say about our national security,” he told reporters who relayed Mr. Trump’s remarks. “I will not ever be quiet about matters of national security.”

Mr. Trump had little patience for Ms. Pelosi when she and other congressional leaders of both parties arrived at the White House for a briefing on the fighting. It was the first time the president had been in the same room with her since she declared the opening of an impeachment inquiry last month and while the topic did not come up, the room crackled with friction.

When Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, cited Mr. Trump’s former defense secretary, Jim Mattis, on Syria, the president cut him off. Mr. Mattis, a retired Marine general, was “the world’s most overrated general,” Mr. Trump said, according to a Democratic account of the exchange.

“You know why?” Mr. Trump said. “He wasn’t tough enough. I captured ISIS. Mattis said it would take two years. I captured them in one month.”

According to the Democratic account, Ms. Pelosi at one point noted that President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia has always wanted a “foothold in the Middle East” and now has one.

“All roads with you lead to Putin,” she told Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump suggested that the Democrats liked the Kurds in part because they included some communists. He lashed out at Ms. Pelosi. “In my opinion, you are a third-grade politician,” he told her, according to the speaker. (Mr. Schumer and the White House both recalled the insult as “third-rate politician.”)

When Ms. Pelosi and Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, stood to leave, Mr. Trump called out, “Goodbye, we’ll see you at the polls.”

Particularlyangering critics in both parties on Wednesday was Mr. Trump’s cavalier attitude toward the Kurdish troops who have been America’s most reliable ally against the Islamic State. Seven times during two public appearances on Wednesday, Mr. Trump used some variation of the phrase “no angels” to describe the Kurds and suggested they fought out of their own financial interest.

“We’re making the Kurds look like they’re angels,” he said at one point. “We paid a lot of money to the Kurds. Tremendous amounts of money. We’ve given them massive fortunes.”

Echoing Mr. Erdogan’s talking points, the president compared one faction of the Kurds to the Islamic State and asserted that Kurds intentionally freed some Islamic State prisoners to create a backlash for Mr. Trump. “Probably the Kurds let go to make a little bit stronger political impact,” he said.

But he denied that he gave Mr. Erdogan a green light for the incursion when he agreed to remove several dozen troops from the border who had served effectively as a trip wire deterring any Turkish operation, citing a letter he wrote the Turkish president last week.

“History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way,” Mr. Trump said in the Oct. 9 letter to Mr. Erdogan, which was obtained by Fox News on Wednesday and confirmed by a White House official. “It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen. Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! I will call you later.”

Even as he discussed the conflict, Mr. Trump effectively confirmed the presence of 50 nuclear weapons at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, violating the longstanding tradition of not publicly acknowledging where such arms are located. “The key issue is whether the U.S. can retain access to the weapons and assure their safety,” he said when asked by a reporter about the weapons.

Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the first several dozen American military forces have left northern Syria, the start of a withdrawal that ultimately will pull out nearly 1,000 troops in coming weeks.

After the troops had left a base near Kobani, Syria, two F-15E’s attack planes carried out a preplanned airstrike to destroy an ammunition cache and reduce the facility’s military usefulness, according to Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a spokesman for the American-led coalition in Baghdad.

However, he also said the Trump administration did not want to isolate Turkey“Our goal isn’t to break the relationship,” Mr. Pompeo said. “It is to deny Turkey the capacity to continue to engage in this behavior.” But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned that the United States could impose more severe sanctions on Turkey if a ceasefire does not occur, possibly targeting more Turkish ministers, ministries or sectors.

Robert Ford, the last American ambassador in Syria before the civil war forced the closing of the United States Embassy in 2012, said Mr. Trump has understandable goals but has mishandled how he pursued them.

“The Trump administration is correct to limit our commitment in eastern Syria, but it is very clumsy in managing the policy and the rollout,” said Mr. Ford, now a fellow at the Middle East Institute and Yale University. “At this late stage," Mr. Ford said, “it is not clear what the administration can hope to salvage.”

Emily Cochrane, Catie Edmondson, Lara Jakes, Annie Karni, Alan Rappeport, Katie Rogers, David Sanger, Eric Schmitt, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.

*********

Former Top State Dept. Aide Tells Impeachment Investigators He Quit Over Ukraine

Michael McKinley, who resigned as a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said career diplomats had been sidelined on Ukraine.

By Nicholas Fandos, Julian E. Barnes and Michael D. Shear | Published

Oct. 16, 2019Updated 8:02 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted October 16, 2019 9:25 PM ET |

WASHINGTON — A former top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress on Wednesday that he resigned amid mounting frustrations with the Trump administration’s sidelining of career diplomats on Ukraine policy and its failure to support them in the face of the impeachment inquiry.

In several hours of closed-door testimony, Michael McKinley, who until last week was a senior adviser to Mr. Pompeo, described his disappointment with how politicized the State Department had become under President Trump, saying that the last straw for him stemmed from the ouster of Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine whom Mr. Trump ordered removed.

According to a copy of his opening remarks reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. McKinley said that after reading in late September that President Trump had disparaged Ms. Yovanovitch as “bad news” on a July phone call with the Ukrainian leader, he had tried to get top State Department officials to publicly laud Ms. Yovanovitch for her “professionalism and courage.” He said he ultimately received no meaningful response, no statement was issued and he decided to step down.

“The timing of my resignation was the result of two overriding concerns: the failure, in my view, of the State Department to offer support to Foreign Service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry on Ukraine,” Mr. McKinley said in an opening statement. “And, second, by what appears to be the utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance a domestic political objective.”

Mr. McKinley told investigators that State Department officials were discouraging people from testifying, and were not supporting diplomats who had received subpoenas and requests to appear before the House, according to a person familiar with his testimony.

Echoing concerns raised by Ms. Yovanovitch last week in her own testimony, Mr. McKinley warned that reported efforts by some Trump administration officials to pressure foreign powers like Ukraine “to procure negative information on political opponents” would “have a serious impact on foreign service morale and the integrity of our work overseas.”

“I was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents,” he said.

Mr. McKinley’s testimony was the latest in a string of accounts that top career diplomats and administration officials have given to impeachment investigators about how experts were sidelined as the president pursued his own agenda on Ukraine, including in a July telephone call in which Mr. Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats.

Taken together, the interviews have corroborated and expanded on many aspects of the intelligence whistle-blower complaint that prompted the impeachment inquiry, which claimed that Mr. Trump abused his power to enlist a foreign government for his own political gain.

And House investigators continued to line up crucial witnesses to fill out the deepening saga. William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, received a House summons to appear on Tuesday, according to an official familiar with the investigation. One associate of Mr. Taylor’s indicated that he was traveling back to the United States this week to prepare for his testimony.

Text messages released by investigators this month showed that Mr. Taylor was alarmed by the White House’s decision to freeze $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine, fretting that the administration was withholding the aid as leverage.

As more evidence emerged, senators met behind closed doors to discuss their plan for a likely impeachment trial within weeks.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, arrived at the weekly party luncheon armed with a PowerPoint presentation he showed colleagues outlining the process, which he said he expected could be completed by Christmas, according to two Republicans familiar with the private discussion who described it on the condition of anonymity. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would preside, he explained, and the Senate would meet six days a week for the proceeding.

During the lunch, Mr. McConnell told members that he believed House Democrats wanted to move expeditiously, possibly approving articles of impeachment by Thanksgiving, and said he also hoped it would go quickly, wrapping up a trial in the Senate by Christmas.

“We intend to do our constitutional responsibility,” Mr. McConnell said.

While Mr. McKinley told lawmakers that he did not have detailed knowledge about the Ukraine matter, he said the handling of the issue was emblematic of a troublesome trend at the State Department, the people familiar with his testimony said. He spoke of his frustration with Rex W. Tillerson, the former secretary of state, saying he had gutted the department, and praised Mr. Pompeo for his leadership.

But Mr. McKinley said he was alarmed at how poorly diplomats were treated. Ms. Yovanovitch, a 30-year veteran of the Foreign Service, testified privately last week that she was abruptly removed from her post after a monthslong push by Mr. Trump to get rid of her on the basis of “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”

He said that when he reached out to Ms. Yovanovitch in late September, she indicated that no senior department officials had contacted her amid revelations of the whistle-blower complaint and Mr. Trump’s July phone call, and that she would welcome more public support, according to his opening remarks.

Mr. McKinley also testified that George Kent, a senior State Department official in charge of Ukraine policy, had written a memo documenting an early October meeting with a State Department lawyer about how to respond to the impeachment inquiry that had alarmed him. Mr. McKinley said Mr. Kent shared the memo with him, and he in turn passed it on to other department colleagues with no reply. The document is likely be of intense interest to investigators.

Democratic lawmakers who participated in the questioning of Mr. McKinley said he fit the mold of other witnesses the impeachment inquiry had interviewed.

“Another career Foreign Service officer with a 33-year career trying to do the right thing,” said Representative Harley Rouda, Democrat of California, as he left the deposition. Mr. Rouda said that Mr. McKinley, like some other witnesses, provided the committees with an opening statement.

After leaving the hearing room, Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, said that Mr. McKinley had been both “complimentary of Secretary Pompeo,” and made clear he was “supportive” of Ms. Yovanovitch.

Mr. Pompeo has defended the administration’s actions regarding Ukraine, saying that the impeachment inquiry has incited a “silly gotcha game” in Washington.

Mr. McKinley appeared voluntarily before the committee, which did not issue a subpoena to compel his testimony, according to an official involved in the inquiry.

He arrived on Capitol Hill Wednesday as the House’s impeachment inquiry has accelerated, with daily hourslong depositions that Democratic lawmakers hope will expose the activities of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, to pressure Ukraine’s government to dig up damaging information about Mr. Trump’s political rivals.

The steady stream of diplomats and White House officials have appeared before the committees despite Mr. Trump’s vow not to cooperate with the inquiry. Mr. McKinley’s testimony further sets the stage for the expected deposition on Thursday of Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union and a Trump loyalist.

In the past week, witnesses have described a shadow foreign policy led by Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Sondland and Rick Perry, the secretary of energy, which was meant to sideline the diplomats with formal responsibility over relations with Ukraine.

Reporting was contributed by Sharon LaFraniere, Emily Cochrane, Catie Edmondson and Julian Barnes.

********

The Ukrainian Prosecutor Behind the Dossier Targeting Hunter Biden

Kostiantyn H. Kulyk has been indicted himself on corruption charges and has a reputation for using investigations as political weapons.

By Andrew E. Kramer and Michael Schwirtz | Published Oct. 15, 2019 Updated Oct. 16, 2019, 12:54 PM ET | New York Times | Posted October 16, 2019 9:25 PM ET |

KIEV, Ukraine — When the Ukrainian prosecutor Kostiantyn H. Kulyk compiled a seven-page dossier in English that accused the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. of corruption, he helped set off a political firestorm that has led to the impeachment investigation of President Trump.

But even as he was reopening a corruption case related to Hunter Biden’s service on the board of Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian gas company, Mr. Kulyk himself was under a cloud of suspicion.

He has been indicted three times on corruption charges and accused of bringing politically motivated criminal cases against his opponents. In a Ukrainian security clearance form, Mr. Kulyk admitted having ties to a warlord in eastern Ukraine accused of working for the Russian intelligence services.

Yet none of this — including the case related to the Bidens — has seemed to harm the career of Mr. Kulyk, who remains a department head in the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office under a new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

“In Ukraine, a toxic person can keep a job,” said Yuriy Butusov, editor in chief of the political news outlet Tsenzor.net. “That’s not a problem.”

Mr. Kulyk’s continued presence in the halls of government illustrates the blending of politics and criminal justice in Ukraine, where investigations are routinely used as political weapons or to grease the business interests of wealthy insiders. And the spread of his dossier in Washington shows how these tactics have spilled into American politics.

In a July phone call that is central to the impeachment inquiry, President Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to investigate the Biden case, including supposed conflicts of interest by Mr. Biden when he was vice president, and a debunked theory that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Zelensky agreed, according to White House notes on the call, saying a new prosecutor general “will look into the situation,” though he said later that the new prosecutor would act fairly and independently.

In a statement, the prosecutor general’s office declined to clarify if Mr. Kulyk retains control over the Biden case, which is now under an audit that delays any prosecutorial decisions. Mr. Kulyk did not respond to requests for an interview.

Mr. Kulyk’s dossier did more than revive the Biden case. The seven-page document he compiled and circulated also accused American diplomats of covering up for crimes committed by the Bidens, a spurious theory that played a role in the recall of the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch.

A strapping former military prosecutor with a buzz cut, Mr. Kulyk pivoted his allegiance to Mr. Zelensky late in the Ukrainian presidential race last spring, allowing him to continue holding sway over important matters.

Currently, he is pursuing a case against a former central bank governor that could aid a powerful oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, a former business partner of Mr. Zelensky. The case has become entangled in talks with the International Monetary Fund about a $5 billion aid program for Ukraine. Those broke off last month amid concerns about Mr. Kolomoisky’s influence on the government. Calls seeking comment from Mr. Kolomoisky on a phone number he has used in the past went unanswered.

The Kolomoisky case and Mr. Kulyk’s role in it have become a credibility test for Mr. Zelensky, who swept to office on an anticorruption platform.

“If he doesn’t fire Kulyk it will be a big negative for him, because then no one will believe that he is a reformer,” said Valeria A. Gontareva, the former central banker involved in the case. “If this country doesn’t get real rule of law then all of our reforms will be easily reversed.”

In March, Mr. Kulyk, who with a former prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, had coordinated with Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to promote the allegations against the Bidens, suddenly switched allegiance in Ukraine’s domestic politics.

He and Mr. Lutsenko had been seen as staunch enforcers for President Petro O. Poroshenko. But two days before the first round of the country’s presidential election — with opinion polls showing Mr. Zelensky crushing Mr. Poroshenko — Mr. Kulyk filed criminal corruption charges against dozens of Poroshenko aides. He then went on a television talk show to discuss the highlights of these cases.

An on-air confrontation ensued. Mr. Poroshenko rushed to the studio and accused Mr. Kulyk of naked political abuse of the justice system. The 11th-hour smear nevertheless reinforced Mr. Zelensky’s campaign message that the country needed a new leader to root out corruption.

Corruption allegations trailed Mr. Kulyk long before his role in the Biden case. In 2016, he was indicted on charges of illegal enrichment, with prosecutors noting that his expensive tastes seemed incongruous with his modest salary as a prosecutor. Court documents describe Mr. Kulyk as owning assets equivalent to 1,615 times the minimum cost of living for Ukraine, including two apartments in central Kiev and a Toyota Land Cruiser that together cost more than four years’ worth of his income.

“In any other country a prosecutor like this would have been fired a long time ago,” said Andrii Savin, a lawyer with Ukraine’s Anticorruption Action Center who has followed Mr. Kulyk’s career closely. “But what happened in this country? The prosecutor general promoted him.”

Mr. Kulyk has also come under fire for his ties to a man believed to be a Russian intelligence agent in his hometown, Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Kulyk disclosed the friendship in an application for security clearance in 2014 as war broke out between Russia-backed separatists and Ukraine, Mr. Kulyk’s former boss in the military prosecutor’s office, Anatoly Matios, told Ukrainian media in 2017.

Mr. Kulyk had known the man, Yevhen Zhylin, when Mr. Kulyk served in the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office and Mr. Zhylin ran a martial arts club in the city, called Oplot, or the Stronghold. Oplot was subsequently transformed into a large, Russian-backed paramilitary unit fighting on the separatist side.

Mr. Matios told the Ukrainian media that Mr. Kulyk had passed the security clearance, but added: “I will tell you something: The moral principles of this person are worthless.”

Investigators who pursued the illegal enrichment case against Mr. Kulyk did, however, find the source of one unexplained asset: the Toyota Land Cruiser. It was registered to the father of Mr. Zhylin, the commander on the pro-Russian side in the war.

In the middle of his corruption trial, Mr. Kulyk was transferred from the military prosecutor’s service to Kiev, where he became a department head in the prosecutor general office’s international department. (Ms. Yovanovitch, then the new American ambassador, was among those who objected to the move.)

It was in this position that Mr. Kulyk began digging into Burisma, the gas company where Hunter Biden served on the board.

In an interview published in The Hill in April, Mr. Kulyk told the conservative commentator John Solomon that he had been trying to give the United States government what he said was evidence of sweeping wrongdoing by Democrats and American diplomats, but had been blocked by officials in the American Embassy in Kiev.

The substance of the interview was consistent with the theory laid out in the dossier he compiled in late 2018, according to his former colleagues at the prosecutor’s office. The dossier, which was leaked by a Ukrainian blogger, asserted that Ukrainian prosecutors had evidence that “may attest to the commission of corrupt actions aimed at personal unlawful enrichment by the former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden.”

Mr. Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general, said in an interview that he never gave Mr. Kulyk’s dossier to Mr. Giuliani. But notes taken by Mr. Giuliani during their meeting in January, passed to Congress this month by the State Department inspector general, mirror the ideas laid out in Mr. Kulyk’s memo.

And in her testimony in the impeachment inquiry on Friday, Ms. Yovanovitch, the former ambassador, suggested that Mr. Kulyk’s dossier, or its main points, had filtered even higher in the American government. She said her recall from Kiev last spring was tied to “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting.

[thisdaynews]

Donald Trump Has Been Acquitted. But Our Government Has Never Seemed More Broken.

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/donald-trump-has-been-acquitted-but-our-government-has-never-seemed-more-broken/

Donald Trump Has Been Acquitted. But Our Government Has Never Seemed More Broken.

A deeply divided Senate acquitted President Donald Trump at the end of his impeachment trial on Wednesday, with 52 Senators concluding the House’s allegations that he abused the power of his office did not necessitate his removal of office, and 53 reaching that conclusion on the charge that he obstructed Congress.

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The Senate’s verdict renders Trump the third President in U.S. history to face impeachment charges in the House and be acquitted by the Senate. The final result came after nearly two weeks of a Senate trial encompassing dozens of hours of oral arguments and more than one hundred written questions from the Senators, and more than four months after the impeachment inquiry first began in the House.

Trump’s acquittal was nearly entirely along party lines. Every Democrat voted to convict Trump and all but one Republican voted to acquit him. Only Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, broke with his party and voted to remove the President from office by convicting him on abuse of power.

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By the conclusion of the trial, there was only one thing on which weary lawmakers from both parties could agree: this impeachment has heralded a dangerous new hyper-partisan era that could damage the workings of government for a generation. Republicans said an impeachment process that was initiated and played out almost entirely along party lines was a disturbing use of a grave constitutional duty as a political weapon in an election year. Democrats said that Republican lawmakers had shirked their constitutional duties in their politically expedient support for Trump, even after multiple government officials testified that the President abused the authority of his office.

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Inside and outside the Senate chamber, lawmakers said all three branches of government had been weakened by the partisanship on display since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first announced the inquiry last September. Depending on their position, they warned that the presidency had been hampered by an impeachment that amounted to a political disagreement, that Congress had abdicated its responsibility for fairness, and that even the judiciary had become tainted by the bitter politics that had seized the impeachment process.

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Senators from both parties sat grim-faced and serious during the proceedings, without any strong visible reaction from either side when Trump was officially declared not guilty by Chief Justice John Roberts. Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, two moderate Democrats who at one point were considered contenders to break with their party and voted to acquit Trump, shared a moment together before the vote. Sinema approached Manchin in his seat and put a hand on his shoulder; they talked briefly, and Manchin stood up to hug her. Minutes later, they both voted guilty on abuse of power, officially making Romney the only senator of either party to break ranks.

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“We have changed. The members of Congress have changed,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Democrats’ lead impeachment manager, lamented during his closing arguments. Members of Congress, he said, are “now far more accepting of the most serious misconduct of a president as long as it is a president of one’s own party. And that is a trend most dangerous for our country.”

Schiff’s final speech was one last attempt to try and persuade moderate Republicans to break with their party. It was a call that only Romney heeded, which technically made this the first bipartisan conviction vote of a president. But Romney knew it would be a futile gesture. “I acknowledge that my verdict will not remove the President from office,” he said in an emotional speech on the Senate floor before the vote. “But irrespective of these things, with my vote I will tell my children, and their children, that I did my duty to the best of my ability believing that my country expected it of me.”

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But Republicans in both the House and Senate constructed their arguments on the opposite point. They argued not that senators should cross party lines to make a bipartisan judgment, but that Republicans should stick together in order to not endorse the House’s partisan vote to impeach the President based on charges that he had abused the power of his office by withholding aid to a foreign ally for his own political benefit, and then obstructed Congress’s efforts to investigate his conduct.

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Trump’s lawyers argued that the prospect of lowering the threshold for impeachable conduct to something that is not a statutory crime and isn’t broadly agreed upon by both parties would mean that future presidents in a similarly divided government could be impeached over mere policy disputes. “If that becomes the new norm, future presidents, Democrats and Republicans, will be paralyzed the moment they are elected,” Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow warned on Jan. 29. “The bar for impeachment cannot be set this low.”

That ultimately appeared to be the stronger argument for some senators who had been on the fence. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who joined Senate Democrats in opposing Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation in 2018 and who had been pinpointed as a possible Republican dissenter in the impeachment process, voted for conviction for precisely this reason. The President’s behavior, she said in a floor speech announcing her decision this week, was “shameful and wrong,” but the House’s process was not an apt remedy for it. “The House rushed through what should have been one of the most serious, consequential undertakings of the legislative branch simply to meet an artificial, self-imposed deadline,” she said. “The House failed in its responsibilities.”

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Like Murkowski, retiring Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander also argued that the risk of endorsing a partisan process in today’s polarized political climate by removing Trump from office outweighed the dangers that Trump’s actions posed. “The framers believed that there should never, ever be a partisan impeachment,” Alexander said in a statement on Jan. 30. “If this shallow, hurried and wholly partisan impeachment were to succeed, it would rip the country apart, pouring gasoline on the fire of cultural divisions that already exist. It would create the weapon of perpetual impeachment to be used against future presidents whenever the House of Representatives is of a different political party.”

And Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, in announcing his decision to acquit, said he was more concerned about the impact of the impeachment proceeding’s partisanship on the country’s future than in leaving Trump in office, even if he had sought foreign interference in the 2020 election, as Democrats claim. “Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office,” Rubio wrote in his statement. “Can anyone doubt that at least half of the country would view his removal as illegitimate — as nothing short of a coup d’état? It is difficult to conceive of any scheme Putin could undertake that would undermine confidence in our democracy more than removal would.”

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Democrats were just as concerned about where the government’s stark political divisions were taking the nation. They felt it prohibited their Republican colleagues in both chambers from even considering their case against the President. Up until last September, Pelosi had publicly resisted growing calls from the Democrats’ progressive voter base and liberal lawmakers to start impeachment proceedings as the White House resisted Congressional oversight, insisting that such a divisive effort must have bipartisan backing. “Unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country,” she told the Washington Post last February.

Democrats knew the bar for amassing enough Republican support for a conviction might be, as Schiff put it in his closing arguments, “prohibitively high.” But they said that it was their constitutional duty to try to stop a Commander in Chief that presented a danger to the nation. And they still held out hope that some Republicans would support their efforts to do so, particularly after more than a dozen non-partisan bureaucrats and political appointees testified under oath that Trump’s efforts to run a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine undermined national security interests, strengthened Russia and set a dangerous diplomatic precedent. “We could not afford to stand on the sidelines in that instance,” Democratic caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries and an impeachment manager, said on Wednesday.

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But it was not until the end of the Senate trial that a handful of Senate Republicans would even publicly say that Trump’s behavior was improper. For Democrats, who viewed Trump wielding the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in the next election as the greatest danger to the republic, the partisanship represented in the Republicans’ united front, which they argued was out of fear of the President or their own job security due to his enduring popularity, was just as concerning as the prospect of removal.

“As long as the president’s party is willing to stand behind him, there will be no accountability for any wrongdoing. None,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, told TIME. “That can’t be right. It just scissors the impeachment clause out of the Constitution.”

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More moderate Democrats were equally perturbed. “Very early on I implored my colleagues in both houses of Congress to stay out of their partisan corners. Many did, but so many did not. The country deserves better,” Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection, said in a statement on his decision to convict the President.

By Wednesday, as the exonerated President shifted his energy back to his re-election campaign, it seemed the most indelible outcome of the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history might be the further deepening of political divisions in government and across the country. On Tuesday, Gallup released a new poll showing that during impeachment, Trump reached his highest ever job approval rating, at 49%. While Trump’s approval among Republicans hit 94%, it was just 7% among Democrats—the largest discrepancy ever measured, according to Gallup.

Going forward, lawmakers will need to find a way to continue to do their jobs in this disillusioned and divided workplace. “So many in this chamber share my sadness for the present state of our institutions,” said Murkowski. “It’s my hope that we’ve finally found bottom here.”

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That sentiment, at least, crosses party lines.

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Republican congressmen, many of whom were not allowed to partake in the closed door hearings, speak to the press on the secrecy of the impeachment inquiry outside the sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 23, 2019.

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A custodial staff member walks into the sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), where Democrats conducted closed-door depositions during the House impeachment inquiry, in the basement of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

[badthingstrumpdidtoday]

A Summary of Bad Things Trump Did This Week, 3/26/17-4/1/17

March 26, 2017:

Trump photographed at gold course despite claims of being in meetings

Source: indy100

This trip, the 12th for Trump since he was inaugurated 9 weeks ago, came after the press pool was reportedly told Trump was in meetings at Trump National. The White House hasn’t yet commented on this trip, which carries a hefty price tag:

The White House has made no comment regarding the trip, which, according to NBC News was the US leader’s eighth consecutive visit to a Trump-owned property.

According to Politico each of these trips costs approximately $3 million (£2.4 million).

Trump’s team reportedly wiping electronic devices of evidence in the face of potential subpoenas

Source: The Independent

Members of Trump’s team and other White House officials may be cleansing devices of data and evidence that could be used in the ongoing Russian investigation. This investigation into possible collusion between Russian operatives and the Trump administration could bring on severe consequences for the president:

John Schindler, a security expert and former counterintelligence officer, said that if the US President was to face an indictment over allegations his campaign team colluded with Russia to disrupt the presidential election, it could put an end to his presidency.

Speaking to CBC radio, Mr Schindler said: "If, not just people around him, but the president himself is facing possible indictment down the road, that could be a game changer. He could be removed from office for that, whether he wants to be or not."

Bannon told Freedom Party members that they needed to vote for the proposed healthcare bill; that it wasn’t up for debate

Source: The Hill

Bannon confronted members of the House Freedom Caucus earlier this week during the White House's push for the American Health Care Act, Axios's Mike Allen reported Saturday in his newsletter.

"Guys, look. This is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill,” Bannon reportedly said.

March 27, 2017:

Trump approves overturning Obama-era education regulations

Source: The Washington Post

Bills signed by Trump Monday undo regulations that included new requirements for training K-12 teachers and rules illustrating how individual states need to carry out the Every Student Succeeds act. While the Every Student Succeeds act is a bipartisan law, support and opposition for the bills Trump signed was split largely across party lines:

Leaders of the Republican majority claimed that the accountability rules represented an executive overreach by former president Barack Obama. Democrats argued that rescinding the rules opens loopholes that states can use to shield poorly performing schools from scrutiny, especially when they fail to serve poor children, minorities, English-language learners and students with disabilities.

Jared Kushner to be questioned by Senate committee regarding meeting with Russians

Source: The New York Times

Reports that Kushner will be questioned as part of the Senate’s investigations into election interference by Russia comes after news surfaced of a previously undisclosed meeting Kushner had with the chief of Vnesheconombank. Vnesheconombank was sanctioned after the Russian annexation of Crimea, and is linked to Russian oligarchs and members of government:

Mr. Gorkov is a graduate of the academy of Federal Security Service of Russia, a training ground for Russian intelligence and security forces. And as the head of Vnesheconombank, Mr. Gorkov presides over a bank whose supervisory board is controlled by members of Mr. Putin’s government, including Prime Minister Dimitri A. Medvedev. It has been used to bail out oligarchs favored by Mr. Putin, as well as to help fund pet projects like the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Around the time the Russian ambassador asked that Mr. Kushner meet with Mr. Gorkov, American intelligence agencies were concluding that Russian spies, acting on the orders of Mr. Putin, had sought to sway the election by hacking political targets, like the Democratic National Committee, and passing stolen emails to WikiLeaks.

Trump administration threatens sanctuary cities with removal of Justice Department grants

Source: Bloomberg Politics

The attorney general spoke at the beginning of the daily White House briefing, as Trump tries to reset his administration following the defeat of major health-care legislation on March 24. Sessions reiterated a policy announced in an executive order Trump signed in his first week in office. That document authorized the attorney general and secretary of Homeland Security to withhold federal grants from sanctuary cities that don’t help the U.S. government deport immigrants.

Sessions said the federal government also could "claw back" grants to jurisdictions refusing to work with the federal government, in addition to refusing to approve new grants.

Mayors of several leading sanctuary cities said they wouldn’t capitulate to Trump.

March 28, 2017:

Trump signs executive order striking down Obama-era policies on climate change

Source: The New York Times, The Independent

Along with unraveling numerous policies from the Obama administration to fight climate change, Trump directed the EPA to begin withdrawing the Clean Power Plan. This Plan would have closed down a number of coal-fired power plants and replaced them with solar and wind farms. The Clean Power Plan was a vital part of the United States’ commitment to meeting the clean energy goals set out in the Paris agreement of 2015:

With his order to move forward with the rollback, climate diplomats around the world maneuvered to fill the vacuum left by the exit of the globe’s second-biggest climate polluter.

“There are countless countries ready to step up and deliver on their climate promises and take advantages of Mr. Trump’s short-termism to reap the benefits of the transition to the low-carbon economy,” said Laurence Tubiana, the chief French negotiator of the 2015 Paris agreement, the landmark accord that committed nearly every country to take action to reduce planet-warming emissions.

Over all, the goal of the Paris deal is to keep the planet from warming more than 3.6 degrees, the point at which scientists say the earth will be irrevocably locked into a future of severe droughts, floods, rising sea levels and food shortages.

Mr. Obama pledged that the United States would cut its emissions about 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. Carrying out the Clean Power Plan was essential to meeting that target.

An article in The Independent also covers this executive order HERE, along with the responses from many groups and individuals committed to fighting climate change:

Green group Earthjustice was one of many organizations that said it will fight the order both in and out of court. “This order ignores the law and scientific reality,” said its president, Trip Van Noppen.

Given that private sector investment in the renewable energy industry hit $350 billion in 2016 globally, outpacing new investment in the oil and gas sector for the first time, Ms Kelly said she expects the “marketplace is going to go forward regardless of what the White House does.”

Several of the country’s largest pension funds, accounting for tens of billions in investment, have already begun divesting money from oil and gas companies in order to ensure a more profitable future for their investors.

Congress votes to overturn Obama-era rules requiring internet providers to get customer permission before selling their browsing data

Source: The Verge

This resolution is now on it’s way to the President’s desk. If Trump signs it, internet providers will be allowed to sell personal data on users without their permission:

It’s hard to see this as anything but a major loss for consumers. While reversing the FCC’s privacy rules will technically just maintain the status quo — internet providers have actually been able to sell your web browsing data forever (it’s just not a thing we think about all that much) — they were about to lose permission to keep doing it, unless they got explicit consent or anonymized the info.

This is an increasingly important issue as Americans spend more and more time online — and keep more and more devices with them at all times. Internet providers can see what sites you visit and what apps you use, and they can see how long you’re using them for. That information is extremely revealing, and it’s easy to imagine most people would prefer to keep their reading habits private.

“The consequences of passing this resolution are clear: broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast, and others will be able to sell your personal information to the highest bidder without your permission,” said Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA) on the House floor this afternoon. “And no one will be able to protect you, not even the Federal Trade Commission that our friends on the other side of the aisle keep talking about.”

Trump administration will not include LGBTQ people on the 2020 census

Source: Out Magazine

This decision has large implications on the stance the government is taking on the LGBTQ population. Inclusion on the census would help gather data on people of different sexual orientations and gender identities in the United States, which could then aid in the creation of legislation to improve the lives of LGBTQ people in America:

Last year, various federal agencies urged the Census Bureau to include sexual orientation and gender in their data as it was crucial to their role in enforcing the law. The survey, which has been conducted every ten years since 1790, includes a wide range of questions designed to gather data on everything from languages spoken to household plumbing facilities. The current census, however, only allows for a snapshot of same-sex households, but Democrats in Congress had pushed for more specific questions around sexual orientation and gender identity to improve results. The logic was simple: With more focused questions law makers would be better equipped to ensure appropriate legislation to improve the lives of LGBTQ citizens.

Trump proposes additional cuts to the National Institution of Health

Source: NBC News

These cuts would affect many federal programs, including those that support medical research, and would take away $1.2 billion in funding. This article also contains a list of health and science programs across various government agencies that would also see budget cuts.

March 29, 2017:

Trump calls for domestic budget cuts in order to pay for border wall

Source: ABC7

Trump has proposed cuts of $18 billion dollars from U.S. programs in order to pay for the border wall. This undermines his previous claims that Mexico would pay for the wall construction - with these cuts in funding, U.S. taxpayers would be footing the bill. ABC7 provides coverage of some of the proposed cuts, which would include some popular, bipartisan programs:

The latest Trump proposal, disclosed Tuesday, would eliminate $1.2 billion in National Institutes of Health research grants, a favorite of both parties. The community development block grant program, also popular, would be halved, amounting to a cut of $1.5 billion, and Trump would strip $500 million from a popular grant program for transportation projects. Some of that money would help pay for parts of the wall.

[...]

Other cuts include $434 million to immediately eliminate a program to encourage community service opportunities for senior citizens, eliminating $372 million in remaining funding for heating subsidies for the poor, and cutting $447 million in transit grants.

March 30, 2017:

Reports surfacing that Russia hired 1,000 people to generate fake news on Hillary Clinton in key states during Presidential election

Source: The Independent

Senators Mark Warner and Richard Burr, a Democrat and Republican respectively on the Senate committee investigating claims of Russian election interference, presented this information at a recent press conference:

[Sen. Warner:] “It’s been reported to me, and we’ve got to find this out, whether they were able to affect specific areas in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, where you would not have been receiving off of whoever your vendor might have been, Trump versus Clinton, during the waning days of the election, but instead, ‘Clinton is sick’, or ‘Clinton is taking money from whoever for some source’ … fake news.

“An outside foreign adversary effectively sought to hi-jack the most critical democratic process, the election of a President, and in that process, decided to favour one candidate over another.”

The key states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania which Mr Warner named all fell narrowly - and unexpectedly - to Donald Trump.

Trump threatens to change libel laws, go after The New York Times

Source: The Hill

Image Source: Donald Trump’s Twitter account

Trump previously mentioned changing libel laws during the campaign. He vowed in February 2016 to “open up” laws in order to sue media outlets that write “purposely negative” and “horrible” articles about him.

“I’m gonna open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible, false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said at a rally in Fort Worth, Texas.

“We’re going to open up those libels laws, so that when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money.

[...]

Despite Trump's threats, there are no federal libel laws on the books. Suits are decided at the state level under current law.

Trump reportedly feels “great” about Mar-a-Lago visits, despite resistance he’s facing over cost of the trips

Source: The Independent

Despite claims he made on the campaign trail that he would rarely be leaving the White House as president, Trump has spent numerous weekends over the past months at Mar-a-Lago. In addition to security concerns, including that sensitive information could be accessed or overheard by other Mar-a-Lago guests, the trips add up to a hefty bill:

The projected cost of security for Mr Trump’s visits over a four year presidential term was reported to be an estimated to be $600 million. This is just over the amount his administration plans on cutting for social, education and cultural programmes.

March 31, 2017:

Sessions admits crime is close to a historic low amid criticism from community activists

Source: The Guardian

Sessions spoke mainly to law enforcement during a visit to St. Louis, MO where he acknowledged that crime rates have been falling. His statements, which only briefly touched on the subject of crime prevention programs, raised eyebrows of community activists:

“One outreach worker can do more to reduce crime in a neighborhood than five police officers can,” said James Clark, vice-president of community outreach for the St Louis not-for-profit group Better Family Life.

“If we continue to lay the issue of crime and violence at the feet of the police department, then that’s a very short-sighted, not well thought-out approach.”

The St Louis city alderman Jeffrey Boyd added: “Let’s remind ourselves of when Ronald Reagan came into office and there was this war on drugs campaign, and then Bill Clinton came in with ‘three strikes you’re out’. It didn’t help the African American community or the poor community. It ended up being a disaster generations later,” Boyd said, noting the disproportionate impact that mass incarceration has had on the black community.

Boyd lost three male relatives to gun violence in 2015 alone and represents the area of the city the Guardian identified in January as the most violent neighborhood in the nation.

April 1, 2017:

Trump tells NBC to stop talking about Russia, start talking about wiretapping allegations

Source: The Hill

Image Sources: Donald Trump’s Twitter page

The president has frequently decried coverage of the investigations into Russian meddling as "fake news."

Trump last month claimed in a series of tweets that Obama “wiretapped” him before the election. He did not supply any evidence.

FBI Director James Comey says he knows of “no information” validating Trump’s accusation. Trump has stood by the allegations, and the White House has said the comment refers to the Obama administration’s surveillance activities more broadly.

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