Tag: House of Representatives

US Houses approves $14 billion ‘Israel only’ bill

Post By World , , , , ,

The first substantial legislative effort in Congress to support Israel in the war falls far short of Biden’s request for nearly $106 billion that would also back Ukraine as it fights Russia, along with US efforts to counter China and address security at the border with Mexico.

ADVERTISEMENT

The United States House of Representatives approved a nearly $14.5 billion military aid package Thursday for Israel, a muscular US response to the war with Hamas but also a partisan approach by new Speaker Mike Johnson that poses a direct challenge to Democrats and President Joe Biden.

In a departure from norms, Johnson’s package required that the emergency aid be offset with cuts in government spending elsewhere. That tack established the new House GOP’s conservative leadership, but it also turned what would typically be a bipartisan vote into one dividing Democrats and Republicans. Biden has said he would veto the bill, which was approved 226-196, with 12 Democrats joining most Republicans on a largely party-line vote.

Johnson,  a Republican Congressman from Louisiana, said the package would provide Israel with the assistance needed to defend itself, free hostages held by Hamas and eradicate the militant Palestinian group, accomplishing “all of this while we also work to ensure responsible spending and reduce the size of the federal government.”

Democrats said that approach would only delay help for Israel. Senate Majority Leader and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer has warned that the “stunningly unserious” bill has no chance in the Senate.

The first substantial legislative effort in Congress to support Israel in the war falls far short of Biden’s request for nearly $106 billion that would also back Ukraine as it fights Russia, along with US efforts to counter China and address security at the border with Mexico.

It is also Johnson’s first big test as House speaker as the Republican majority tries to get back to work after the month of turmoil since ousting California representative Kevin McCarthy as speaker. Johnson has said he will turn next to aid for Ukraine along with US border security, preferring to address Biden’s requests separately as GOP lawmakers increasingly oppose aiding Kyiv.

The White House’s veto warning said Johnson’s approach “fails to meet the urgency of the moment” and would set a dangerous precedent by requiring emergency funds to come from cuts elsewhere.

While the amount for Israel in the House bill is similar to what Biden sought, the White House said the Republican plan’s failure to include humanitarian assistance for Gaza is a “grave mistake” as the crisis deepens.

Biden on Wednesday called for a pause in the war to allow for relief efforts.

“This bill would break with the normal, bipartisan approach to providing emergency national security assistance,” the White House wrote in its statement of administration policy on the legislation. It said the GOP stance “would have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead.”

It was unclear before voting Thursday how many Democrats would join with Republicans. The White House had been directly appealing to lawmakers, particularly calling Jewish Democrats, urging them to reject the bill.

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, counsellor to the president Steve Ricchetti and other senior White House staff have been engaging House Democrats, said a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.

But the vote was difficult for some lawmakers, particularly Democrats who wanted to support Israel and may have trouble explaining the trade-off to constituents, especially as the large AIPAC lobby and other groups encouraged passage. In all, two Republicans opposed the bill.

Democrat Brad Schneider of Illinois who voted against the package, said: “It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.”

To pay for the bill, House Republicans have attached provisions that would cut billions from the IRS that Democrats approved last year and Biden signed into law as a way to go after tax cheats. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says doing that would end up costing the federal government a net $12.5 billion because of lost revenue from tax collections. Taken together, the cost of the aid package and revenue reduction adds up to more than $26 billion.

Republicans scoffed at that assessment, but the independent budget office is historically seen as a trusted referee.

Backers said the package would provide support for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system, procurement of advanced weaponry and other military needs, and help with protection and evacuations of US citizens. CBO pegged the overall package at about $14.3 billion for Israel.

Dems call to restore humanitarian aid

As the floor debate got underway, Democrats pleaded for Republicans to restore the humanitarian aid Biden requested and decried the politicization of typically widely bipartisan Israel support.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Republicans are leveraging the excruciating pain of an international crisis to help rich people who cheat on their taxes and big corporations who regularly dodge their taxes,” said Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee.

Dan Goldman of New York described hiding in a stairwell with his wife and children while visiting Israel as rockets fired in what he called the most horrific attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

Nevertheless, Goldman said he opposed the Republican-led bill as a “shameful effort” to turn the situation in Israel and the Jewish people into a political weapon.

“Support for Israel may be a political game for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle,” the Democrat said. “But this is personal for us Jews and it is existential for the one Jewish nation in the world that is a safe haven from the rising tide of antisemitism around the globe.”

The Republicans have been attacking Democrats who raise questions about Israel’s war tactics as antisemitic. The House tried to censure the only Palestinian-American lawmaker in Congress, Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib, over remarks she made. The censure measure failed.

ADVERTISEMENT

Andrew Clyde, a Republican representative from Georgia, said he was “so thankful there is no humanitarian aid,” which he argued could fall into the hands of Hamas.

No chance in the Senate

In the Democratic-controlled Senate, Schumer made clear that the House bill would be rejected.

“The Senate will not take up the House GOP’s deeply flawed proposal, and instead we’ll work on our own bipartisan emergency aid package” that includes money for Israel and Ukraine, as well as humanitarian assistance for Gaza and efforts to confront China.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is balancing the need to support his GOP allies in the House while also fighting to keep the aid package more in line with Biden’s broader request, believing all the issues are linked and demand US attention.

McConnell said the aid for Ukraine was “not charity” but was necessary to bolster a Western ally against Russia.

ADVERTISEMENT

In other action Thursday, the House overwhelmingly approved a Republican-led resolution that focused on college campus activism over the Israel-Hamas war. The nonbinding resolution would condemn support of Hamas, Hezbollah and terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education.

Source link

#Houses #approves #billion #Israel #bill

Gaetz files motion to oust House Speaker McCarthy

Post By World , , ,

It’s a rare and strong procedural tool that has only been used twice in the past century. But in recent years, conservatives have wielded the motion as a weapon against their leaders.

ADVERTISEMENT

Further chaos with the US Republican party as far-right Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz announced he was using a procedural too – called a motion to vacate – to try to strip House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of his office. 

In a speech on the House floor, Gaetz demanded McCarthy disclose the details of a supposed deal with the White House to bring forward legislation to help fund the war in Ukraine after the speaker relied on Democrats to provide the necessary votes to fund the government.

“It is becoming increasingly clear who the speaker of the House already works for and it’s not the Republican Conference,” Gaetz said.

Brushing off the threat, McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol, “I’m focused on doing the work that has to be done.”

McCarthy said there was “no side deal” on Ukraine, noting he has not spoken to Biden. Instead, he said he was asked to ensure the “transferability” of existing funds continues and said if there’s any problem with that, ”we’ll fix it.”

Here’s what to know about how the House can remove a speaker:

What is a motion to vacate?

The rules of the House allow for any single lawmaker — Democrat or Republican — to make a “motion to vacate the chair,” essentially an attempt to oust the speaker from that leadership post through a privileged resolution.

It’s a rare and strong procedural tool that has only been used twice in the past century. But in recent years, conservatives have wielded the motion as a weapon against their leaders.

In January, McCarthy, hoping to appease some on the hard right as he fought to gain their vote for speaker, agreed to give as few as five Republican members the ability to initiate a vote to remove him. But when that wasn’t good enough for his critics, he agreed to reduce that threshold to one — the system that historically has been the norm.

Proponents of allowing a single lawmaker to file the motion said it promotes accountability, noting its long history in the House. The last use of the motion was in 2015, when then-Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a Republican who later became Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, introduced a resolution to declare the speaker’s office vacant. Two months later, Boehner said he would be stepping down.

No speaker has ever been removed from office through a motion to vacate.

How does it work?

At any point in time, a member of the House can introduce a privileged resolution — a designation that gives it priority over other measures — to declare the office of the speaker of the House of Representatives vacant.

Once the motion is introduced, the lawmaker can walk onto the House floor and request a vote. Such a request would force House leaders to schedule a vote on the resolution within two legislative days.

But there are procedural motions that members of either party could introduce to slow down or stop the process altogether. If those tactics were to fail, and the resolution came to the floor for a vote, it would take a simple majority of the House — 218 votes, when no seats are vacant — to remove the speaker.

While it has never been successful, a motion to vacate has been used as a political threat against several speakers throughout history, dating back to Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon — who first invoked the resolution against himself in 1910. The effort failed as his fellow Republicans voted overwhelmingly to keep him as their leader. But by calling the bluff of his detractors, Cannon was able to put them on the record and end the threats against him.

In 1997, Republicans frustrated with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich considered trying to oust him but eventually decided against it. Most recently, the mere whispers of a motion to vacate forced Boehner out of office and set McCarthy on the path to the leadership post he has today.

Why do hard-line Republicans want to get rid of McCarthy?

Just like for Boehner, the call for McCarthy’s removal began with just one man. Gaetz, a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, has been threatening to file the resolution to remove him from the dais ever since McCarthy was nominated speaker by a majority of the conference earlier this year.

Gaetz is among 20 or so members who voted against McCarthy round after round as he fought to become speaker. While others eventually relented and voted in favour of McCarthy or present, Gaetz fought until the very end.

ADVERTISEMENT

“This will all be torpedoed by one person who wants to put a motion to vacate for personal, political reasons, and undermine the will of the conference and the American people, who elected a Republican majority to govern,” Congressman Mike Lawler of New York, a defender of McCarthy, said Sunday on ABC.

Gaetz and other critics of McCarthy say he has failed to be the conservative leader the party needs. They have railed against his deal with the White House over raising the debt limit earlier this year and have demanded the House slash spending levels to new lows. The group has also made sweeping demands to reimagine the U.S. government, which they criticize as “woke and weaponized.”

Does Gaetz have the votes to pass the motion?

As of right now, it is unclear, but there’s reason to be sceptical. No matter how loud or disruptive they may be, the anti-McCarthy faction is only a small minority in a Republican conference that is mostly supportive or amenable to him remaining speaker.

Another problem with the push to remove McCarthy is that there is no clear, consensus candidate to take his place. And lastly, and maybe more importantly, Gaetz would need the support of most Democrats to oust McCarthy if the motion ever came to a vote — and it’s far from certain that they would join him.

“The one thing I agree with my Democrat colleagues on is that for the last eight months, this House has been poorly led and we own that and we have to do something about it,” Gaetz said on the floor last week. “And you know what? My Democrat colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that, too. And we will see if they bail out our failed speaker.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Gaetz has been speaking to House Democrats from across the ideological spectrum in recent weeks trying to assess what kind of support, if any, he would have from those across the aisle if he were to file his motion and it came to the floor.

“We haven’t had a discussion about any hypothetical motion to vacate,” Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a news conference Saturday. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

What happens next?

The House would enter uncharted territory if a motion to vacate effort against McCarthy were to pass the full House.

The speaker of the House, under the rules of the chamber, is required to keep a list of individuals who can act as speaker pro tempore in the event a chair is vacated. The list, which is oddly written by the sitting speaker at any given time, remains with the House Clerk and would be made public if the speakership were vacant.

The first person on that list would be named speaker pro tempore and their first order of business would be to hold an election for a new speaker. That event requires the House to vote as many times as it takes for a candidate to receive the majority of those present and voting for speaker.

ADVERTISEMENT

For McCarthy, that process took an unprecedented 15 rounds in January.

New candidates for speaker could emerge, but there’s also nothing to stop Republicans from nominating McCarthy again.

Source link

#Gaetz #files #motion #oust #House #Speaker #McCarthy

Military whistleblowers’ shock testimony claims UFOs really do exist

Post By World , ,

Along with detailed descriptions of first-hand encounters with spherical and Tic Tac-shaped objects, witnesses alluded to government intimidation that made them fear for their lives

A US congressional panel has heard testimony from former military servicemen that the American military may know far more about unknown objects spotted in the sky than has previously been disclosed.

The hearing on so-called Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs – a term coined partly to avoid the stigma of “UFO” – featured several witnesses from military career backgrounds sharing stunning testimony about alleged secret military programmes, as well as personal encounters with unknown objects that appeared to defy known physics and engineering principles while flying in US airspace.

One witness was David Charles Grusch, a former US Air Force intelligence officer and whistleblower who recently went public with claims that the American military may be attempting to reverse-engineer recovered craft of no known earthly origin.

Another, retired US Navy Commander David Fravor, gave a detailed account of an encounter he and other pilots had with a UAP over the Persian Gulf in 2004.

“As we looked around, we noticed some white water off our right side. The weather on the day of the incident was as close to a perfect day as you could ask, clear skies, light winds, calm seas (no whitecaps from the waves) so the white water stood out in the large blue ocean. As all four looked down we saw a small white Tic Tac shaped object…

“As we pulled nose onto the object at approximately ½ of a mile with the object just left of our nose, it rapidly accelerated and disappeared right in front of our aircraft. Our wingman, roughly 8,000ft above us, also lost visual. We immediately turned to investigate the white water only to find that it was also gone.

The object, he said, “was far superior in performance to my brand new F/A-18F, and did not operate with any of the known aerodynamic principles that we expect for objects that fly in our atmosphere.”

Out in the open

There is significant political pressure by US lawmakers to investigate the UAP issue in detail while keeping the debate on it as rational as possible. In that spirit, some of the panel’s members sought to frame the hearing as an exposé of possible extraterrestrial visits to Earth, but an inquiry into a possible cover-up.

“We’re not bringing little green men or flying saucers into the hearing,” said Congressman Tim Burchett. “Sorry to disappoint half of y’all.”

Yet other members emphasised that part of the point of the hearing was, in fact, to understand the meaning of the hundreds or thousands of sightings apparently made by military staff and commercial pilots.

In her own opening remarks, during which she mentioned the infamous Roswell incident, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna remarked that Congress needs to understand “the magnitude of what this means not just for this nation, but for humanity”.

Thanks to a sporadic sequence of news reports and official disclosures in recent years, beginning with a stunning New York Times story in 2017, there is a greater public understanding than ever about what steps the US has been quietly taking to investigate UAPs, in particular those spotted by military servicemembers.

Millions of dollars of funds quietly allocated by the US Senate are known to have been spent on probing the matter, including via the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force established in 2020, and its successor, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, for which Grusch worked.

News reports, declassified videos and Congressional testimony have made clear that there have been many more encounters than the public has been made aware of, and that there are striking consistencies across the witness accounts that have been gathered.

And even among those who remain steadfastly sceptical of any suggestion that extraterrestrial aviators are visiting Earth, the string of still-partial revelations has raised serious alarm that advanced technology of some kind might be being used in proximity to American military assets – and that if so, it is not clear who has developed and deployed it.

Wednesday’s hearing, however, marks a new turn in the public story.

Fear and danger

Both Grusch and Fravor specifically alluded to the US government’s possible awareness or even possession of craft originating beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.

Grusch’s most striking testimony was indirect, in that he did not claim to have first-hand knowledge of the supposed objects in question. Instead, he testified that in 2019, he was “informed” of “a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program” that was or is operating without Congressional scrutiny.

“I made the decision based on the data I collected, to report this information to my superiors and multiple Inspectors General, and in effect become a whistleblower,” he told the subcommittee.

“As you know, I have suffered retaliation for my decision. But I am hopeful that my actions will ultimately lead to a positive outcome of increased transparency.”

Fravor also voiced concern about the lack of government scrutiny of the reported incidents and the military’s knowledge of them.

“What concerns me is that there is no ‘oversight’ from our elected officials on anything associated with our government possessing or working on craft that we believe are not from this world,” he said in his remarks.

He also reiterated to the committee that the object he and other pilots saw in the Persian Gulf in 2004 was able to perform seemingly impossible manoeuvres that would outpace any US military assert.

“The technology that we faced was far superior than any we had, and you could put that anywhere…it could go someplace, drop down in a matter of seconds, do whatever it wants and leave, and there’s nothing we could do about it.”

Crucially, Grusch and Fravor both stressed that the objects they discussed were not only spotted by pilots visually, but also detected on radar, though that data has not been released.

The strongest running theme of the hearing, however, was that there is currently almost no way for pilots and military personnel to report sightings without attracting the stigma associated with UFO conspiracy theorists – or far darker consequences.

Grusch, for one, confirmed to Luna that he had at times feared for his life since coming forward.

There is also no reporting system at all for civilian aviation pilots. Another witness, former F-18 pilot Ryan Graves, explained that he had helped found the group Americans for Safe Aerospace to support those who had had UAP encounters, and that he had not anticipated how many witnesses would contact him.

The group, he says, has “become a haven for more than 30 UAP witnesses who were previously unspoken due to the absence of a safe intake process. Most do not want to speak publicly. They are afraid of professional consequences. They just want to add their account to the data set.”

Tellingly, the Republican-led subcommittee session featured some of the House of Representatives’ most hardcore right-wing members – Florida’s Matt Gaetz, for instance – along with left-wing figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

That is testament to the fact that the issue of UAPs cuts across party lines like few other topics at a time when Washington, and the House of Representatives in particular, is viciously divided.

As Congressman Jared Moskowitz said in his opening remarks, “it shouldn’t take the possibility of non-human origin to bring us together”.

Source link

#Military #whistleblowers #shock #testimony #claims #UFOs #exist

GOP-controlled Texas House impeaches Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, triggering suspension

Post By World , , , ,

Stephanie Lucie, right, and Lynn Tozser, left, protest in favor of impeaching Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Texas Capitol on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Austin, Texas.
| Photo Credit: AP

Texas’ Republican-led House of Representatives impeached State Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a sudden, historic rebuke of a GOP official who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.

Impeachment triggers Mr. Paxton’s immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the State Senate and empowers Republican Governor Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ top lawyer in the interim.

The 121-23 vote constitutes an abrupt downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn U.S. President Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump. It makes Mr. Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

Mr. Paxton, 60, decried the move moments after scores of his fellow partisans voted for impeachment, and his office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.

“The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just,” Mr. Paxton said. “It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.”

Mr. Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. His party had long taken a muted stance on the allegations — but that changed this week as 60 of the House’s 85 Republicans, including Speaker Dade Phelan, voted to impeach.

“No one person should be above the law, least not the top law officer of the state of Texas,” Rep. David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Mr. Paxton, said in opening statements. Another Republican committee member, Rep. Charlie Geren, said without elaborating that Mr. Paxton had called some lawmakers before the vote and threatened them with political “consequences.”

Lawmakers allied with Mr. Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that they had too little time to review evidence.

“I perceive it could be political weaponization,” Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the House’s most conservative members, said before the vote. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to “a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.”

Mr. Paxton is automatically suspended from office pending the Senate trial. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Mr. Paxton’s wife’s, Angela, is a member.

Representatives of the governor, who lauded Mr. Paxton while swearing him in for a third term in January, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on a temporary replacement.

Before the vote Saturday, Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to Mr. Paxton’s defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process “a travesty” and saying the attorney general’s legal troubles should be left to the courts.

“Free Ken Paxton,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with impeachment, “I will fight you.”

In one sense, Mr. Paxton’s political peril arrived with dizzying speed: The House committee’s investigation came to light Tuesday, and by Thursday lawmakers issued 20 articles of impeachment.

But to Mr. Paxton’s detractors, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later he was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Mr. Paxton’s office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but was soon fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Mr. Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.

But what ultimately unleased the impeachment push was Mr. Paxton’s relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Mr. Paxton was misusing his office to help Mr. Paul over the developer’s unproven claims that an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties was afoot. The FBI searched Mr. Paul’s home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Mr. Paul.

The impeachment accuses Mr. Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Mr. Paul. Its bribery charges allege that Mr. Paul employed the woman with whom Mr. Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney general’s home.

A senior lawyer for Mr. Paxton’s office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Mr. Paxton’s still-pending securities fraud indictment.

Four of the aides who reported Mr. Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas’ whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House committee said it was Mr. Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout that sparked their probe.

“But for Paxton’s own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment,” the panel said.

Source link

#GOPcontrolled #Texas #House #impeaches #Republican #Attorney #General #Ken #Paxton #triggering #suspension

Dems Have Awesome Special Election Night. Please, Republicans, Talk More About Hunter Biden’s Peenerwanger.

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There were a bunch of special elections yesterday (that’s what we in the business call a real “grabber” of a lede), and a bunch of Democratic candidates won by larger margins than Joe Biden’s presidential results in 2020. Also, yesterday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court primary set up the chance to flip that court to Democratic control for the first time in forever. So huzzay!

Let’s hop right in!

Virginia: Meet Rep.-Elect Jennifer McClellan!

State Sen. Jennifer McClellan will be headed to Congress after winning the special election for Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District. She’ll take the seat previously held by Rep. Donald McEachin, who won re-election to the House last November but died of cancer later that month.

McClellan was expected to win, what with the Fourth being a safe Democratic district by registration. But she didn’t just win against her Republican opponent, Leon Benjamin, she stomped him. With 95 percent of the vote in, McClellan won with 74.1 percent of the vote to Benjamin’s 25.9 percent. (The margin was 68-32 when the AP called the race last night.)

Benjamin also lost to McEachin in November, although by a slightly closer 30-point margin, 64.9 percent to 34.9 percent.

With her win, McClellan becomes Virginia’s first Black woman in Congress, which seems like a first that should no longer be remarkable until I remember that I live in friggin’ Idaho, which will likely elect its first Black member of Congress sometime around the time Idaho also has state-run socialized medicine. McClellan also becomes the 150th woman in the House, and the 28th Black woman, both of which are also records. And for you stats nerds, once she’s sworn in, she’ll finally bring the House to its full 435 members, at least until June 1, when David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island) resigns to lead the Rhode Island Foundation.

McClellan is a veteran state lawmaker, having served 10 years in the House of Delegates (Virginia is so cute) before succeeding McEachin in the state Senate in 2016, when he was elected to Congress. She raised far more money than Benjamin did, and campaigned on her record of support for abortion rights, voting rights, and addressing climate change.

Benjamin, on the other hand, seems not to have benefited in either of his recent elections from a September fundamentalist event in Idaho where he blew a shofar to cast out all the demons in the Pacific Northwest and North America:

There’s about to be an anointing, there’s about to be a breakthrough, there’s going to be a binding of demons, a binding of witches and warlocks. You’re about to see the power of God released through the trumpet. […]

Your shout is going to shift America into winning elections that they thought they could steal. They’re trying to steal [it] again, but the trumpet is going to confuse the electoral process, it’s going to confuse the thieves, it’s going to confuse the Dominion machines; they’re gonna break up, fire is going to hit them, and people who they thought were gonna lose are going to win!

Either God is actually pretty bad at confounding election thieves, or there weren’t any to confound in the first place. OK, maybe there’s no God either, but let’s not get carried away here.

After winning the primary in December, McClellan said she didn’t mind that if she won, she’d be coming to Congress as part of the minority party:

I spent 14 years in the minority party in the Virginia Legislature and still was able to get over 300 bills passed. […] I think it’s a natural progression of the work that I have been doing already.”

And in fact at her victory party last night, McClellan pointed out that she had passed another two bills in the state Senate on Election Day. We like the cut of her jib!

Kentucky: Is A Dem Winning 77 Percent Of The Vote Good?

In Kentucky, Democrat Cassie Chambers Armstrong won a seat in the state Senate, with 77 percent of the vote, filling a seat that had previously been held by Democrat Morgan McGarvey, who won election to Congress in November. McGarvey had served for a decade in the state Senate.

Armstong was a member of the Louisville Metro Council before running for the state Senate. She beat Republican Misty Glin, who also lost a November bid for a seat on the Jefferson County School Board. Armstrong’s election won’t affect the balance of power in Kentucky’s Senate, where Republicans will still hold a 30 seat to 7 seat majority once she’s sworn in.

Armstrong promised in a statement to do all she could to rein in GOP shenanigans in the state Lege:

Every day we see headlines about the majority in the General Assembly attacking LGBTQ youth, continuing to starve our public schools and the children that rely on them, and writing laws that put women’s lives at risk. There is an urgent need for change in Frankfort, and I’m grateful that the voters of the 19th Senate District have given me the chance to fight for them.

Armstrong, who is a law prof at University of Louisville, will represent a heavily Democratic district. Her victory margin yesterday was actually higher than its 60 percent voter registration, and than the district’s 66 percent vote for Joe Biden in 2020. Her victory is not expected to help at all in my chronic habit of confusing Kentucky and Tennessee.

New Hampshire: Chuck Grassie Re-elected To State House, Will Not Tweet Inscrutable Nonsense

In a run-off special election, incumbent Democratic New Hampshire state Rep. Chuck Grassie, with an i-e,won re-election in a rematch with Republican David Walker. The re-do election was necessary because the two had actually tied with 970 votes each in November’s general election. New Hampshire is the one with the crazy 400 House members, and during the early counting in November, it looked as if the Grassie-Walker race might decide control of the state House. But now that things have settled down, Republicans will still hold a narrow majority of 201 seats to Democrats’ 199, including Grassie.

“My first priority tonight is to relax,” Grassie said at the end of a campaign that was extended three months after the tie in November. “I will be going to Concord tomorrow morning to meet with my fellow Democrats that I will be working with. Then, I plan on getting to work, getting caught up on what I have missed and looking forward.”

Despite the similarity of his name to the Republican US Senator from Iowa, there’s no evidence that Rep. Grassie has ever hit a deer with his car and assumed it was dead.

[Politico / CNN / Joe.My.God / Foster’s Daily Democrat / Courier Journal]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please give $5 or $10 a month to help us keep this mommyblog on the road and not bumping ungulates.

Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.



Source link

#Dems #Awesome #Special #Election #Night #Republicans #Talk #Hunter #Bidens #Peenerwanger