Pelosi

New House Democratic Leader Defends Calling Trump ‘Illegitimate’ President

December 6, 2022 By Bloomberg 4 Comments

Newly elected House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries defended past remarks calling Donald Trump’s 2016 election “illegitimate” against Republican criticism, noting that he voted to certify his presidency.

“I will never hesitate in criticizing the former president,” Jeffries said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I think I’m in good company there across the world.”

Jeffries said Republicans “are going to have to work out their issues” with Trump after his comment Saturday on his Truth Social social-media site that his loss in 2020 should be overturned and that “rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” should be terminated. Jeffries called it “a strange statement.”

“Suspending the Constitution is an extraordinary step, but we’re used to extraordinary statements being made by the former president,” Jeffries said of Trump, who is running for the 2024 Republican nomination for president.

For their part, Republicans have criticized Jeffries after Democrats selected him to succeed Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing tweets in which he said that Russian interference made the 2016 presidential election “illegitimate” and questioned whether Trump was a “fake president.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called Jeffries an “election denier,” a term typically used to describe Trump and allies who refuse to accept his loss in 2020.

Jeffries said that he voted to certify Trump’s 2016 win, attended his inauguration and worked with his administration on issues like a treaty with Mexico and criminal justice reform.

“That track record speaks for itself,” he said.

The White House harshly criticized Trump’s latest claim of election fraud, calling the US constitution a “sacrosanct document.”

“Attacking the Constitution and all it stands for is anathema to the soul of our nation, and should be universally condemned,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement. “You cannot only love America when you win.”

Former Trump adviser John Bolton, who has since become one of his harshest critics, said on Twitter that “all real conservatives” should oppose his 2024 campaign, citing that statement.

“No American conservative can agree with Donald Trump’s call to suspend the Constitution because of the results of the 2020 election,” he wrote.

Republican Representative David Joyce, who chairs the moderate Republican Governance Group, said on “This Week” that he wasn’t going to respond to Trump’s latest statement, even if it was a call for suspending the US constitution.

Click here to read the full article in the OC Register

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Congress, Democrats, Pelosi

As Pelosi Backs Away, A New Generation of Democrats Steps Forward

November 22, 2022 By Marianna Sotomayor 8 Comments

One day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced she would step back from leading the House Democratic caucus, a changing of the guard began, led by a crop of Democrats tasked with charting a new path for the party as it reaches a generational inflection point.

Seasoned and newer Democratic lawmakers eagerly embraced the prospect of a fresh start that could usher in a new era for the Democratic Party, as new leaders Friday announced their intention to fill the vacancies left by Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.). The first major reshuffle of House Democratic leadership in decades will not only affect which policies Democrats pursue, but also bring with ita shifting view of how leadership should function.

Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) have emerged as the expected leaders of the next chapter, officially announcing their candidacies for the Democratic caucus’s top three positions on Friday. Besides the appeal of their relative youth — all are younger than 60, while the current top three are all older than 80 — the trio more robustly represents the diversity within the Democratic Party. Jeffries, 52, would break barriers as the first Black person to lead any party in either chamber of Congress. Clark, 58, could become the second woman to serve as minority whip, and Aguilar, 43, would be the second Hispanic lawmaker to chair the caucus if elected this month.

“In the 118th Congress, House Democrats will be led by a trio that reflects our beautiful diversity of our nation. Chair Jeffries, Assistant Speaker Clark and Vice Chair Aguilar know that, in our Caucus, diversity is our strength and unity is our power,” Pelosi said in a statement endorsing the candidates Friday.

Roughly two dozen Democratic lawmakers who spoke to The Washington Post this week were hopeful about the new generation of leaders expected to take charge, while many also noted that they hoped to elect colleagues to the rest of the large Democratic leadership slate who will expand age, cultural and regional diversity.

House Democrats overwhelmingly recognize, however, that no one leader in the new generation can be as powerful as Pelosi, who maintains the ability to achieve legislative results by coaxing members in the direction needed.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who has known Pelosi for almost four decades, acknowledged Pelosi’s style of “tough love” is what forged consensus to achieve historic feats like passing the landmark Affordable Care Act, several priorities of President Biden’s agenda and other bills that required sacrifices from members who may not have agreed with all provisions.

“She’s been a leader, a speaker, that has led through many, many difficult days,” Lee said. “But yes, she has always risen to the occasion and has shepherded through this Congress transformational legislation.”

A post-Speaker Pelosi House

Without that tight grip, members privately have mused over the past year, the new reality couldcreate a scenario where no one can control members’ demands.

“If no one’s living in fear of the speaker of the House, then maybe it’s a complete s—show,” one Democratic lawmaker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

But that is a risk many Democrats see as worth taking. They have grown tired of what several described as top-down governance, and they want to see new leaders engage more often with the ideological factions of the caucus before decisions are made, avoiding last-minute spats over legislation.

Reverence also was expressed toward Pelosi for shattering the marble ceiling, an acknowledgment that without her, Hoyer and Clyburn, members would not have such a structurally strong foundation on which to build and expand the caucus.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a member of “The Squad,” made up largely of liberal women of color, wants to see the new leaders make more inroads with the most progressive members of the caucus, noting that their lived experiences aren’t routinely considered.

“Sometimes I feel treated as if my background — and it’s not just me, there are others, I can speak personally for myself — is like something that should be put in the corner,” she said, noting her background as an unhoused single parent working for low wages, as well as experience with domestic and sexual violence.

Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar spent much of the past term forging relationships throughout the caucus and acknowledging they would rely on one another’s strengths to bring all viewpoints to the decision-making table. Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) credited the team, particularly Jeffries, for working in an inclusive manner and seeking input from colleagues.

“Having the first African American leader of either political party, I think, is really significant,” he said. “On top of that … [Jeffries is] extraordinarily talented, an amazing messenger of our values, a strong strategist, and someone who is inclusive and seeks input from his colleagues.”

Many older members in the caucus took the passing of the torch in stride, echoing Pelosi’s words read from Scripture during her Thursday speech, that there is “a time and a season” for everything. It’s a realization Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) had this year when he decided to retire after 15 years in the House. Before doing so, he called Morgan McGarvey, 42, to inquire if he would run for his seat in Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District because of his skill — and age.

“The world is moving at 100 miles an hour. Congress at its max, at its optimum efficiency, moves at 10 miles. So you need people who are more accustomed to the pace of change and adapting to the pace of change,” he said just hours after he was officially kicked out of his office in the Cannon Office Building. “Because if this body doesn’t figure out how to do that, it’s going to become irrelevant.”

Help from the ‘old guard’

While there is an overwhelming eagerness to start anew, several members were glad to hear that the “old guard” would still be around next term. It served as a relief for several, who had previously expressed worry that the new generation has not had enough time to harness their legislating and negotiating chops. The expected new top three in the caucus have served a collective 27 years in Congress, compared with the 58 years combined that Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn have served in leadership alone.

“I think for one thing, when you’re in the minority, it really is time to train people to be in the majority,” Hoyer said in an MSNBC interview Friday, echoing what many members have expressed about a transitional time being beneficial to new leaders.

Moreover, Hoyer retains a respectful relationship with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who earned the GOP conference’s nomination to be speaker next term. Both McCarthy and Jeffries have acknowledged not having a solid relationship, as both have often spent the past several years trading barbs.

Several Democratic lawmakers who spoke to The Post say Jeffries has proved himself to be a reliable antagonist against Republicans and their policies, a role he will have to play in the minority. But the ability to legislate and negotiate will be a test for the new trio as Republicans begin to acknowledge that they will have to rely on Democrats to approve must-pass legislation to overcome their razor-thin majority.

During a weekly news conference days before Pelosi stepped aside, Jeffries said House Democrats have always shown a willingness to work with the GOP, noting that the caucus previously worked with the Trump administration on policies “because we understood it was the right thing to do for America.” But where they engage depends on the proposals Republicans put forth.

“I think the metric of this caucus is: Does the policy help our communities, and does it help our country?” Aguilar said. “But if Republicans are going to engage in the continued extremism that we’ve seen over the past few years, then I don’t know if there’s an appetite.”

While the old guard will be around to give advice — particularly Clyburn, who is expected to remain in leadership — Pelosi said in an interview Thursday that she does not want to encroach on how Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar choose to lead the caucus.

“I have no intention of being the mother-in-law in the kitchen saying, ‘My son doesn’t like the stuffing that way. This is the way we make it in our family.’ They will have their vision. They will have their plan,” she said.

Instead, her closest confidants are hoping the new guard will allow Pelosi to step back and relax.

Click here to read the full article in the Washington Post

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Congress, Legislature, Pelosi

Pelosi Says Members Urging Her to Consider House Leadership Again

November 15, 2022 By Andrew Solender 3 Comments

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday her congressional colleagues are encouraging her to run for another term as Democratic leader.

Why it matters: The comment is the starkest indication yet that Pelosi is mulling another run for the position she’s held variably as speaker and minority leader for nearly two decades.

What she’s saying: In a CNN “State of the Union” interview, Pelosi said “of course” she will make a decision about re-election to the position before the Democrats’ leadership elections on Nov. 30.

“People are campaigning, and that’s a beautiful thing, and I’m not asking anyone for anything,” Pelosi said, “My members are asking me to consider doing that.”
“Let’s just get through the [2022 midterm] election,” she added.

Between the lines: Whether Democrats keep the majority in the House is expected to have a significant impact on Pelosi’s decision-making.

She is much more likely to stay if she can be the speaker than the House minority leader.
“The Speaker will make an announcement when she makes an announcement,” Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill said in a statement. “Until then, let’s all enjoy watching Kevin McCarthy lose a speakership his party hasn’t even won in the first place.”
Asked on Sunday whether McCarthy has what it takes to be speaker, Pelosi said, “No, I don’t think he has it.”

State of play: Roughly 20 House races remain uncalled by the Associated Press as of Sunday. Neither party has reached the 218 seats needed to take the majority.

Democrats would have to win three-quarters of those seats to keep the House — a long shot, but not out of the question.
“They’ve been measuring for draperies. They’ve been putting forth an agenda. They haven’t won it yet,” Pelosi said Sunday.

Click here to read the full article on Axios

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Congress, Pelosi

Pelosi & Kavanaugh Murder Plots Show Media Double Standard

November 1, 2022 By Michael Shellenberger 3 Comments

The same news media that mischaracterized psychosis as fanaticism in the alleged plot to kill Pelosi also downplayed the assassination plot against Kavanaugh by an abortion rights fanatic.

David DePape, the suspect in an alleged assassination attempt against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wrote a series of right-wing blog posts in recent weeks. “Many of the posts were filled with screeds against Jews, Black people, Democrats, the media and transgender people,” notes The Washington Post. “In one post, written on Oct. 19, the author urged former President Donald J. Trump to choose Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, as his vice-presidential candidate in 2024,” reports The New York Times. “In another,” wrote The Los Angeles Times, “he called ‘equity’ a leftist dog whistle ‘for the systematic oppression of white people’ and ‘diversity’ a ‘dog whistle for the genocide of the white race.’”

But the blog posts confirm my original reporting yesterday that DePape has been, for at least a decade, in the grip of a psychosis caused by mental illness and/or drug use. The Washington Post, to its credit, reports in the first paragraph that DePape’s blog was filled with “delusional thoughts, including that an invisible fairy attacked an acquaintance and sometimes appeared to him in the form of a bird” and that, as each post loaded, “a reader briefly glimpses an image of a person wearing a giant inflatable unicorn costume.” The New York Times acknowledged that, “mixed in with those posts were others about religion, the occult and images of fairies that the user said he had produced using an artificial intelligence imaging system,” albeit not until the 22nd paragraph.

And now the mother of DePape’s two children, Gypsy Taub, has publicly confirmed that DePape has experienced psychotic episodes. “He is mentally ill,” she told ABC7, “He has been mentally ill for a long time.” Taub said DePape disappeared for almost a year and “came back in very bad shape. He thought he was Jesus. He was constantly paranoid, thinking people were after him. And it took a good year or two to get back to, you know, being halfway normal.” However, it is not clear whether DePape’s psychosis is a result of an underlying mental illness, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, or from the long-term use of drugs, particularly meth, which can result in psychosis and permanent changes to brain functioning. Taub’s neighbors, as I reported yesterday, said Taub herself suffered frequent bouts of paranoid psychosis and had repeatedly lied about them to the police.

Many people responded to my reporting yesterday by noting that DePape may have been psychotic but that the real problem lay with right-wing conspiracy theories. “But even if you believe he’s psychotic (which seems plausible),” wrote former New Yorker reporter James Surowiecki in response to my article, “why did his paranoid psychosis take as its object Nancy Pelosi? Because of the ubiquity of right-wing conspiracy theories and the demonization of Pelosi by right-wing media… We can certainly get rid of conspiracy theories being mainstreamed on cable TV and social media by high-profile pundits.”

But we can’t get rid of discussions of conspiracy theories because doing so would violate the First Amendment and, as I noted yesterday, psychotic people construct their delusions from whatever is in popular culture at the time to invent justifications for their actions. In 1981, a psychotic man named John Hinkley, Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan because, Hinkley said, he wanted to impress the actress Jodie Foster. Earlier this month, a man in Washington state shot two 40-something innkeepers because, he said, he heard the voice of Pope Gregory and John Paul say to him, “Are you going to let Bonny and Clyde do that to our family?”

And if mainstream news journalists are so concerned that political extremism is resulting in more violence against public officials, why did they, en masse, downplay the assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in June? Where The New York Times has put the alleged Pelosi assassination attempt on its front page for two days in a row, it buried the story of the Kavanaugh murder plot on page A20. Three days later, none of the Sunday morning political shows, such as NBC’s “Meet the Press,” even mentioned the assassination attempt.

Today, “Meet the Press,” focused on the Pelosi plot and framed it as overly political, making no mention whatsoever of DePape’s psychotic delusions. “The chilling and violent attack on Paul Pelosi — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband — is raising fears of more political violence,” said its host, Chuck Todd.

Click here to read the full article in Substack

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Crime, Pelosi, san francisco

Paul Pelosi Attacked During Home Break-In In San Francisco

October 30, 2022 By Evan Symon 7 Comments

Police arrest subject, Pelosi expected to make full recovery

Paul Pelosi, a businessman and husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), was assaulted by a man armed with a hammer during a home break-in in San Francisco early Friday morning. Police arrested the suspect and Pelosi was rushed to the hospital.

During a San Francisco Police briefing, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott outlined what had happened. According to the SFPD, Capitol Police, and other officials, an assailant armed with a hammer entered the Pelosi residence early on Friday morning through the back of their house. While security personnel are present when Speaker Pelosi is in town, she was in Washington, leaving her husband there alone.

Special agents from the U.S. Capitol Police’s California Field Office and SFPD officers quickly responded to calls of the break-in. However, before they could arrive, the man started shouting “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” several times. Paul Pelosi confronted the suspect, who then proceeded to try and tie him up “until Nancy got home.”

However, things quickly escalated, and when law enforcement officials arrived they saw the suspect assaulting Pelosi with a hammer. The officers quickly tackled the suspect, and immediately arrested him. Pelosi, meanwhile, was given immediate aid by the officers and was sent to the hospital for surgery, with Speaker Pelosi’s office saying that he is expected to make a full recovery.

“Early this morning, an assailant broke into the Pelosi residence in San Francisco and violently assaulted Mr. Pelosi,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Speaker Pelosi in a statement on Friday. “The assailant is in custody and the motivation for the attack is under investigation. Mr. Pelosi was taken to the hospital, where he is receiving excellent medical care and is expected to make a full recovery. The Speaker was not in San Francisco at the time. The Speaker and her family are grateful to the first responders and medical professionals involved, and request privacy at this time.”

At the SFPD press conference, Chief Scott said that the motive for the attack is still under investigation, but that the suspect had been identified and that he will be “booked at San Francisco county jail on the following charges: attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, verbal and several other additional felonies.”

In addition to the SFPD and Capitol Police, the FBI, U.S. Attorney’s office, and the San Francisco district attorney’s office will be investigating the break-in and attack.

The suspect, a 42-year-old Canadian man named David DePape, had been in California for around 20 years prior to the attack and allegedly posted about multiple conspiracy theories on social media ranging from the January 6th storming of the Capitol to the COVID-19 pandemic to religious claims that “Jesus was the anti-Christ.” While not much else is currently known about him, more is expected to come out in the coming days.

Paul Pelosi attacked in San Francisco home

Lawmakers from both parties expressed shock and disgust with the attack on Friday, with some of Pelosi’s most ardent opponents and critics, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), extending heartfelt messages to Speaker Pelosi and her family.

“This was a horrific and scary incident. I have reached out to Speaker Pelosi to offer my support to her and her family. I want to thank the San Francisco Police Department and the San Francisco Fire Department for their quick response to this incident,” said San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a short statement on Friday. “The Police have the suspect in custody, and as we have more information to share, we will do so.”

Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted early on Friday that “Doug and I are appalled by the attack on Paul Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi’s husband. The entire Pelosi family is in our hearts and we wish him a speedy recovery.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell sent a similar tweet, stating that he was “Horrified and disgusted by the reports that Paul Pelosi was assaulted in his and Speaker Pelosi’s home last night. Grateful to hear that Paul is on track to make a full recovery and that law enforcement including our stellar Capitol Police are on the case.”

While the news is still breaking and more details are expected later today and through the next several days, many in San Francisco noted that the assault will likely be used as further evidence to show the level of which San Francisco’s crime problem has reached in recent years.

“First off, the attack was horrific, and no matter where you stand politically you have to be horrified by what happened,” expressed Frank Ma, a former policeman and security consultant in the city, to the Globe on Friday. “But while this is investigated and worked out, this is also going be used to point out how dangerous things have gotten in the city. You know, you hear about assaults on the street all the time, but now the husband of the Speaker of the House was attacked in his home in one of the wealthiest areas of the city. I already got a few calls from more wealthier clients asking what they can do to prevent this from happening to them and you can bet a lot of people tonight are going going to be checking their locks more than usual or making sure they set their security codes again for the night.

“Pelosi is getting a lot of support from everyone right now, which is good and expected, but this is really going to help shape the issue of crime in the city as well. The attack may have been political, but it is also underlying just how bad things have gotten in the city too.”

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Crime, Legislature, Pelosi

Paul Pelosi Kicked Out of California Police Charity After Flashing Membership During DUI Arrest

August 29, 2022 By Emily Crane 4 Comments

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was kicked out of a California law enforcement association on Thursday after he flashed his lifetime membership card to officers during his DUI arrest earlier this year.

The California Highway Patrol 11-99 Foundation’s (CHP 11-99) decision to rescind Paul Pelosi’s membership comes just two days after he pleaded guilty to a DUI charge over the May 28 crash in Napa.

“After evaluating the events that led to Mr. Pelosi’s arrest and conviction, we are revoking Mr. Pelosi’s lifetime membership with the CHP 11-99 Foundation effective immediately,” the group said in a statement.

When the 82-year-old was questioned by highway patrol officers and asked for identification, a slurring Pelosi had offered up his driver license and the 11-99 membership card, according to a criminal complaint.

“The mere presentation of his 11-99 Foundation identification credentials to law enforcement made it appear that he was presenting them for preferential treatment,” the group said, adding it was in violation of their terms and conditions.

CHP 11-99, which supported state highway patrol officers and their families, informed Pelosi of the decision via a letter on Wednesday.

The group said they’ll refund whatever Pelosi had donated once he returned all membership items he received when joining.

Pelosi dodged jail time during his sentencing in Napa County Superior Court on Tuesday after being ordered to serve three years’ probation as part of his plea deal.

The terms of his probation included five days in jail, but Pelosi will be given credit for those days, the judge said.

Roadside dashcam footage released by authorities in the wake of his guilty plea shows Pelosi slurring his words after the late night crash.

In the video, Pelosi can be heard mumbling to an officer that he had a “glass of champagne before dinner” and also “a glass of white.”

Click here to read the full article in the NY Post

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, DUI, Pelosi

Congress Just Passed the Inflation Reduction Act. It Will Hike Taxes on Some Middle-class Households.

August 14, 2022 By Eric Boehm 10 Comments

It also spends billions on new green energy programs, and it lets the IRS hire 87,000 new agents.

Congressional Democrats have put the finishing touches on a questionable bet: that higher taxes will help tame rising prices, and that voters will reward the effort.

On Friday afternoon, the House of Representatives approved a $300 billion tax hike with a party-line vote, 220–207, sending the Inflation Reduction Act to President Joe Biden’s desk. It passed the Senate with a similar party-line vote on Sunday.

Despite the bill’s name, independent analysts have found it will have virtually no impact on inflation. In reality, it is a pared-down version of what Biden originally pitched as the “Build Back Better” plan—it leaves aside much of the original bill’s spending, but it maintains a huge corporate tax increase, huge spending on green energy initiatives, and a plan to swell the ranks of IRS agents. What was originally a roughly $4 trillion proposal that would have relied heavily on borrowing ended up being something of a rarity in Washington: a bill that will raise more revenue than it spends.

And where will it get that revenue? Quite possibly from you. Households earning as little as $50,000 annually are more likely to see a tax increase than a tax break from the legislation.

In the final hours before the House vote, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) completed a breakdown of how the bill’s corporate tax increases would affect households at various income levels. The JTC, a nonpartisan number-crunching agency within Congress, found that households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 are more likely to see a tax increase than a tax decrease next year.

Higher-earning households are more likely to see tax increases, but households earning more than $1 million next year are actually far more likely than lower-earning households to get a tax break.

That fits with what The Tax Foundation, a tax policy think tank, found when it analyzed the bill. The Inflation Reduction Act will “would also reduce average after-tax incomes for taxpayers across every income quintile over the long run,” the Tax Foundation reported on Wednesday. Those tax increases will reduce long-term economic output by about 0.2 percent and could eliminate 29,000 jobs, the group found.

Democrats pushed the bill as a cost-cutting measure that would help Americans make ends meet, reduce the federal budget deficit, and help protect the environment.

“It makes a difference at the kitchen table,” Pelosi said at a press conference on Friday morning. “And at the board room table, corporations will now have to pay their fair share.”

If only those two things could be separated as cleanly as Pelosi implies. Tax increases on corporations get passed along from the board room table to the kitchen table in a variety of ways: lower pay for workers, higher prices for consumers, and smaller investment returns for shareholders.

As Reason has detailed a length in recent weeks, other aspects of the bill also leave much to be desired. It would dedicate about $300 billion of new revenue to reduce the long-term budget deficit, but that aspect of the bill is probably better understood as a plan to actually pay for about an eighth of the borrowing that Congress has approved since Biden took office. Meanwhile, giving the IRS a massive budget boost so it can hire 87,000 new agents likely means more tax audits aimed at the middle class, no matter what Democrats are currently claiming. The expanded subsidies for purchasing of health insurance via the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces is likely to push inflation higher. And the bill’s aim to reduce carbon emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2031 may be plausible, but just barely.

Perhaps the only aspect of the Inflation Reduction Act that’s as bizarre as its name is the meta-analysis of the bill that’s been taking place in political media. Its passage is a “win” that “could give Democrats a boost heading into the midterms,” according to NPR. It “will help validate the Democrats’ monopoly on political power in Washington and hand Joe Biden a notable presidential legacy ahead of November’s midterm elections,” gushed CNN’s Stephen Collinson.

Time will tell, but this sounds like a reprise of the claims that were made after last year’s bipartisan infrastructure package—which, regardless of what you think about its merits, plainly hasn’t done much to reverse Biden’s flagging approval rating.

Click here to read the full article at Reason

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Biden, Pelosi, taxes

Issa Slams AOC, Pelosi Over SCOTUS Security Bill Stall: ‘It is Astonishing’

June 15, 2022 By Houston Keene 2 Comments

California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa slammed both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and “Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., over blocking a bill to give Supreme Court justices and their families police protection.

Issa torched Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez as the bill remains stalled in the House after passing the Senate unanimously last month, going after the pair for preventing House members from “voting their conscience.”

“The House legislation I authored already passed the Senate 100-0 and I don’t know of a single Member of Congress who will end up opposing it,” Issa said in a press release first obtained by Fox News Digital. “It is astonishing that Speaker Pelosi and AOC are not only blocking this bill, but also bragging about it on social media.”

“Enough is enough. President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Schumer, and AOC need to tell their shock troops to stop breaking the law and cease threatening people in their homes,” Issa continued. “And Speaker Pelosi should let my Democrat colleagues vote their conscience on this vital bill.”

“This essential security needs to happen before somebody gets killed — because it almost happened last week,” the California Republican added.

Issa’s statement came Monday, two days after Ocasio-Cortez touted her blocking of the bill that didn’t see a single “no” vote in the Senate — even from the top Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

“Fly-out days are also days of maximum high jinks from party leadership, both Democratic and Republican Party leadership,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a Saturday Instagram Live video.

“I wake up this morning and I start to hear murmurs that there is going to be an attempt to pass the Supreme Court supplemental protection bill the day after gun safety legislation for schools and kids and people is stalled,” she said.

“Oh, so we can pass protections for us and here easily, right? But we can’t pass protections for everyday people?” the New York Democrat continued. “I think not.”

Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow “Squad” members have actively pushed “defund the police” rhetoric while simultaneously paying thousands of dollars in campaign funds for private security forces.

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and other members of the far-left “Squad” collectively spent over $325,000 on private security in 2021 despite promoting the “defund the police” movement during the George Floyd unrest of 2020, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records reviewed by Fox News Digital.

Click here to read the full article at FoxNews

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: AOC, Pelosi, SCOTUS