Congress
This week, the House of Representatives came together in unity and bipartisanship following an attack at Wednesday’s practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game.
My prayers today are with my friend Whip Steve Scalise and with all those who were injured in the shooting this morning, including the U.S. Capitol Police officers who courageously responded and saved lives.
If Russian operatives were successful in hacking into servers in thirty-nine states connected to voting systems and elections personnel, we ought to be very concerned about the security of future elections.
Republicans blew past their April 15 deadline months ago, and they are still haven’t proposed a budget for fiscal year 2018. What’s holding them up? Their deep internal divisions, of course. Republicans didn’t pass a budget last year, and prospects are starting to dim this year as their conference continues to feud among themselves.
A look at the headlines today shows Republicans in the Senate are following the lead of their House colleagues on TrumpCare. The Senate GOP has been meeting in secret to negotiate a bill and reports indicate they are finalizing a draft. Yet, they won’t let some of their own Members – let alone the American people – see what’s in the bill. It’s clear they want to hide the impact from the public and jam it through before heading home for the July 4th district work period.
Today’s GOP quote of the day is a good reminder for our Republican friends that budget/shut down/debt limit brinksmanship hasn’t gotten them anywhere in the past. With only six weeks in session before the August recess, and no proposed budget, no approps bills passed, and a pressing need to raise the debt limit, we’ll see whether they listen to Republican Study Committee Chair Mark Walker (R-NC). From CQ’s Budget Tracker:
For the past seven years, Republicans have taken a number of steps to undermine the success of health insurance marketplaces.
I was honored to meet today with recipients of the National Endowment for Democracy award.
This week, House Republicans passed the Wrong Choice Act, which would dismantle consumer protections and allow Wall Street to engage in the same kind of risky practices that led to the financial crisis in 2008.
We need to keep in mind there are really two separate issues here. One is, what did the Russians do, who did they do it with, how were they trying to undermine our democracy and western democracies generally?