Republican

Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mary Miller sent a letter to the FBI Tuesday pressing the bureau to investigate the Nashville shooting as a domestic terrorist attack. On Monday, six people were killed at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, after 28-year-old Audrey Hale open fired at the private Christian school before being shot dead by police. Nashville Police Chief John Drake has since reported that Hale, a transgender person, once attended the private elementary school, and had targeted the school in a manifesto recovered by local law enforcement after the mass shooting. Greene, of Georgia, and Miller, of Illinois, addressed the manifesto in their letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday, which was first obtained by the Daily Caller . The congresswomen also wrote in their one-page letter that Hale "self-identified as a member of the transgender political ideology." "You have claimed in prior congressional testimony that the … [Read more...] about Republican lawmakers question FBI on Nashville school shooting

Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that Republicans were “siding with the killers” in mass shootings. Swalwell said, “I just got out of a Judiciary Committee hearing, Nicolle, where the Republicans ironically called in the FBI for non-subpoenaed compliance. This is the committee run by Jim Jordan.” He continued, “Most importantly, this was the first hearing since Nashville, so every Republican on that committee, when they go home this weekend and face their voters, they will ask them what did you do on the only committee that has jurisdiction over gun safety? They’re going to tell them we sided with Donald Trump over your kids. What’s so maddening about that answer is that everything we do in our daily lives, I’m living this right now, and you have kids. Everything we do focuses around protecting kids.” He added, “If you have little kids, they can’t open the cabinets, they can’t go up the stairs, you have gates, they can’t open any … [Read more...] about Swalwell: Republicans ‘Siding with the Killers’ in Mass Shootings

The House Democrats’ official campaign arm is stepping into a Western Michigan Republican primary to elevate a candidate endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump against one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him. The $425,000 advertising run is the latest in a slew of Democratic efforts to draw attention to far-right candidates, hoping that they will be easier to beat in November than more mainstream Republicans. But in this case, it could also be seen as a slap to Representative Peter Meijer, the incumbent in the Grand Rapids-area district who braved blowback from his own party over his vote to impeach Mr. Trump and is now fighting skulduggery from the right and the left. The ad , which will begin airing on Tuesday and was openly cut and funded by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, proclaims that John Gibbs, who is challenging Mr. Meijer, is “too conservative” for West Michigan. But in tone and content, it is clearly meant to appeal to … [Read more...] about Democrats Aid Far-Right Candidate Against Republican Who Backed Impeachment

One of the notable dynamics of American life today is that conservatives report being personally happier than liberals but also seem more politically discontented. The political left has become more institutionalist, more invested in experts and establishments, even as progressive culture seems more shadowed by unhappiness and even mental illness. Meanwhile conservatives claim greater contentment in their private lives — and then go out and vote for paranoid outsiders and burn-it-down populists. These dynamics aren’t entirely new: As Musa al-Gharbi writes in an essay for American Affairs, the happiness gap between liberals and conservatives is a persistent social-science finding, visible across several eras and many countries. Meanwhile, the view that “my life is pretty good, but the country is going to hell,” which seems to motivate a certain kind of middle-class Donald Trump supporter, would have been unsurprising to hear in a bar or at a barbecue in 1975 or 1990, no less than … [Read more...] about How the Right Turned Radical and the Left Became Depressed

MIAMI — Dalia Carmeli, who drives a trolley in downtown Miami, voted for Donald J. Trump on Election Day. A week later, she stopped in to see the enrollment counselor who will help her sign up for another year of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. “I hope it still stays the same,” said Ms. Carmeli, 64, who has Crohn’s disease and relies on her insurance to cover frequent doctor’s appointments and an array of medications. Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress are vowing to repeal much or all of the health law, a target of their party’s contempt since the day it passed with only Democratic votes in 2010. If they succeed, they will set in motion an extraordinary dismantling of a major social program in the United States. But for now, with open enrollment for 2017 underway, people are steadily signing up or renewing their coverage, and in conversations last week in South Florida, many refused to believe that a benefit they count on would actually be taken away. … [Read more...] about Many in Florida Count on Obama’s Health Law, Even Amid Talk of Its Demise

“Social security — they used to call it the third rail of American politics,” President Bush told a news conference last year, “because when you talked about it, you got singed, at the minimum.” But “singed” was putting it mildly; on another occasion, he concluded the metaphor with all the force inherent in it: “You grab ahold of it, and you get electrified.” Last month, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, agreed about the reason so many politicians dreaded dealing with the dangerous subject of Social Security: “This is, kind of, the third rail . No one wants to touch it.” We have here one of the most vivid political metaphors coined in the U.S. in the past generation. As every subway straphanger knows, the word picture is rooted in the system invented in the 1880s providing electric current to a railroad train and running parallel to its two rails; passengers are wise to give it a wide berth. How and when did the fear of this technological conveyor of power … [Read more...] about Third Rail

One of the Republican Party’s most astute pols, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, recently reflected on his party’s status among voters. In a 20-page memo for his colleagues, Davis wrote, “If we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” Bad as things are, they may get worse. The signs of Republican trouble are everywhere. Eighty-one percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, the worst number since The New York Times and CBS started asking the question in 1991. Consumer sentiment in May, as measured by the University of Michigan, was at its lowest level in 28 years. Republicans have lost three consecutive special elections for House seats in rock-ribbed Republican districts, a particularly ominous harbinger of electoral catastrophe. Yet Democratic successes right now are driven more by Republican failures than by an enthusiastic public embrace of what Democrats stand for. The Democratic-controlled Congress, after all, has a lower approval rating … [Read more...] about Back to the Center

Senator Josh Hawley 's hopes of seeing unanimous support for his TikTok ban are beginning to look more like wishful thinking than an easy task, as a growing number of Republicans put more obstacles in his way. In an opinion piece published by the Courier Journal on Wednesday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul broke with his GOP colleagues to argue that banning TikTok in the United States risks emulating censorship from the Chinese government. Calls to ban the Chinese-owned social media app have grown amid concerns about national security threats posed by TikTok. There has been broad support for a ban both in Congress and from the White House. However, testifying on Capitol Hill last week, TikTok CEO Shou Chew insisted that his company was independent of China, pointing out that the app itself is not available in mainland China and saying TikTok's user data is "American data stored on American soil by an American company overseen by American personnel." Hawley had already … [Read more...] about Josh Hawley’s TikTok ban suffers another blow

Police in New York are on high alert today and have battened down the hatches fearing riots should Donald Trump be indicted over a case of alleged hush money he allegedly paid to porn star Stormy Daniels . Although Trump is involved in numerous legal discourses, an indictment would be historic as it would mark the first time ever that a former US President is faced with criminal charges. On Saturday, he demanded his supporters "protest, protest, protest!" against it in a post on Truth Social posing a bitter provocation, in a chilling echo two years after his social media activity incited the infamous Jan 6 US Capitol riot. The New York Police Department has unloaded barricades around the criminal court building in Lower Manhattan to enhance security. Meanwhile, a New York grand jury investigating him appears poised to complete its work soon as law enforcement officials make preparations for possible unrest in the event of an indictment. Supporters of Donald Trump … [Read more...] about Cops brace for riots as historic Donald Trump arrest expected in chilling Jan 6 echoes

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell returned home from inpatient physical therapy following a fall he suffered in early March. The tight margins in the Senate could pose a problem in the debt ceiling fight. McConnell previously suggested he would not allow the U.S. to default. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell 's health could prove an added difficulty amid efforts to raise the federal debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic sovereign debt default. McConnell returned home on Saturday after receiving inpatient physical therapy following a fall he suffered at a private dinner in Washington, D.C. on March 8 but it's not entirely clear when he will return to the Senate . The Kentucky Republican's absence comes ahead of expected efforts to raise the debt ceiling and as two Democratic senators— John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Dianne Feinstein of California—also remain absent. The tight margins in the Senate could pose a problem in the widely … [Read more...] about Mitch McConnell’s health could be catastrophic for the debt ceiling crisis