In an address today, Joe Biden urged Congress to pass his national security supplemental request, including funding to support Ukraine.
Speaking from the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president said:
Congress has to uphold the national security needs of the United States and, quite frankly, of our partners as well. This cannot wait. Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. It’s as simple as that.
Biden also touched on border policies, saying:
Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine’s funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies.
Let me be clear: we need real solutions. I support real solutions at the border. I put forward a comprehensive plan the first day I came into office. I’ve made it clear that we need Congress to make changes to fix what is a broken immigration system, because we all know it’s broken. And I’m willing to do significantly more. But in terms of changes to policy and to provide resources that we need at the border, I’m willing to change policy as well.
The Senate has begun a procedural vote on Joe Biden’s national security supplemental funding request.
Sixty votes are required surrounding the $106bn Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan funding.
So far, there are 30 yes’s and 29 no’s. The voting remains underway.
In an address today, Joe Biden urged Congress to pass his national security supplemental request, including funding to support Ukraine.
Speaking from the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president said:
Congress has to uphold the national security needs of the United States and, quite frankly, of our partners as well. This cannot wait. Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. It’s as simple as that.
Biden also touched on border policies, saying:
Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine’s funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies.
Let me be clear: we need real solutions. I support real solutions at the border. I put forward a comprehensive plan the first day I came into office. I’ve made it clear that we need Congress to make changes to fix what is a broken immigration system, because we all know it’s broken. And I’m willing to do significantly more. But in terms of changes to policy and to provide resources that we need at the border, I’m willing to change policy as well.
A new school board president in Pennsylvania was sworn in on Monday on a stack of frequently banned books.
In a video posted by the Recount, Karen Smith, the new Central Bucks school board president can be seen saying her vows on a stack of six banned books.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the books include Night by Elie Wiesel, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson, Flamer by Mike Curato, and Beyond Magenta by Susan Kukin.
According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), between 1 January and 31 August, OIF reported 698 to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles.
The ban marks a 20% increase from the same reporting period in 2022, OIF said.
Four Republican presidential candidates are set to meet onstage in Alabama tonight for the fourth Republican presidential debate.
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports:
Four White House hopefuls will meet onstage in Alabama for the fourth Republican presidential primary debate, the smallest lineup yet as the window for denting Donald Trump’s lead narrows.
Wednesday night’s debate, hosted by the cable network NewsNation at the Moody Music Hall at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, offers one of the last major opportunities for the candidates to make their case to Republican voters before the party’s nominating contest begins next month.
The two-hour event will feature Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador, who are locked in an increasingly combative scrap to be the second-place alternative to Trump. They will be joined by Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, who both trail far behind.
Read the full story here:
Joe Biden has announced that his administration is approving another $4.8bn in student debt cancellation for 80,300 people.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the president said that this brings the total debt cancellation that his administration has approved to $132bn for over 3.6 million Americans.
Biden said:
Today’s announcement comes on top of all we’ve been able to achieve for students and student loan borrowers in the past few years.
This includes: achieving the largest increases in Pell Grants in over a decade to help families who earn less than roughly $60,000 a year; fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program so that borrowers who go into public service get the debt relief they’re entitled to under the law; and creating the most generous Income-Driven Repayment plan in history – the Save plan.
The Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison has released the following statement on Kevin McCarthy’s resignation announcement in which he said the US will be “better off without Kevin in office”:
In his short time as speaker, Kevin McCarthy managed to plunge the People’s House into chaos in the name of serving one person and one person alone: Donald Trump. At every turn, Kevin sought to give his puppet master a lifeline, even after the horrific events of January 6, and spent his embarrassing speakership bending the knee to the most extreme factions of the MAGA base.
This anticlimactic end to Kevin’s political career is in line with the rest of his time on Capitol Hill – plagued by cowardice, incompetence, and fecklessness. Our country will be better off without Kevin in office, but his failed tenure in the House should serve as a stark warning to the country about the future of the GOP – no matter how much he kowtowed to the extreme right, no matter how much he kissed the ring, none of it was MAGA enough for the de facto leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump.
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers has vetoed a Republican bill that would have banned gender-affirming care including surgeries and hormone treatments for minors in the state.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Evers said:
I promised I would veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place for LGBTQ folks and kids—and I keep my promises.
George Santos, the expelled Republican representative from New York, is reportedly making six figures by selling Cameo videos.
The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:
The disgraced lawmaker George Santos is reportedly making six figures by selling videos on the platform Cameo, generating more income than his previous salary as a US congressman, Semafor first reported.
Santos, a former Republican representative from New York state, was expelled from Congress last Friday following a blistering ethics report that detailed his misuse of campaign funds.
Since his removal, Santos has been publishing videos on Cameo, a website that allows users to purchase personalized videos from celebrities. The disgraced congressman has drastically increased the price of his videos, now selling them for $400 a pop from his initial $75-per-video price point.
Read the full story here:
Here is a video Kevin McCarthy released surrounding his resignation announcement:
In the video, McCarthy said:
Traveling the country and serving with all of you, I have encountered far more people that want to build something than those who want to tear it down. I have faith in this country because America is more than a country, America is an idea.
Today, I am driven by the same purpose that I felt when I arrived in Congress but now it is time to pursue my passion in a different arena.
Joe Biden has responded to a question on whether he thinks there are any Democrats who could beat Donald Trump other than himself.
“Probably 50 of them,” replied Biden.
He then went on to say, “I’m not the only one who can beat him, but I will beat him.”
In response to Kevin McCarthy’s resignation announcement, California’s Democratic representative Adam Schiff said:
“My dad asked me recently what I thought of Kevin McCarthy. In light of his retirement, I figured I’d share …”
He went on to post a video in which he spoke about McCarthy, saying, “I think he’s a bad egg.”
South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham has released the following statement on Kevin McCarthy’s resignation announcement:
I wish Kevin McCarthy well in his future endeavors to help the conservative cause. Kevin has much to be proud of, rising through the ranks to Minority Leader and Speaker of the House. He navigated the Republican Party through some of the most turbulent periods in recent history, getting results in difficult circumstances.
“He will be missed, but I am sure his contributions to the future of the Republican Party will be enormous.”
California’s Democratic representative Eric Swalwell, who predicted earlier this week that McCarthy would leave Congress, has responded to McCarthy’s resignation with a check mark emoji.
Earlier this week, Swalwell tweeted:
“With Santos gone, you’re hearing it here first: the next GOP member to leave Congress will be@SpeakerMcCarthy. No way he stays. A guy who kidney punches his colleagues from behind is too afraid to serve out a full term with them. I bet he’s gone by end of year. What say you?”
In an odd and fairly threatening post, Georgia’s Republican representative Majorie Taylor Greene responded to the news of Kevin McCarthy resigning, saying:
“Well..
Now in 2024, we will have a 1 seat majority in the House of Representatives.
Congratulations Freedom Caucus for one and 105 Rep who expel our own for the other.
I can assure you Republican voters didn’t give us the majority to crash the ship.
Hopefully no one dies.”
Kevin McCarthy’s resignation will come before the special elections which are expected to take place either next February or March to fill the vacancy left by George Santos who was expelled from the House last Friday.
With McCarthy gone, there will be two Republican vacancies in the House.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
