TV News LIES

The House passed legislation Thursday to revive and extend expired ObamaCare tax credits in a bipartisan vote that is boosting hopes of centrist Republicans for a bipartisan deal to revive the tax credits.

The tally, 230 to 196, highlighted the tenuous grip Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has over his restive GOP conference. Seventeen centrist Republicans crossed the aisle to join every voting Democrat in support of the measure.

The measure, which would provide a three-year extension to the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that originally passed in response to COVID-19, now heads to the Senate, which defeated the same proposal last month in a largely partisan vote. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has suggested he’ll ignore the House bill altogether.

Still, lawmakers think it could light a fire and pressure the bipartisan Senate group working to reach a bipartisan deal.

Negotiators from both parties in the Senate, who revived compromise talks in response to centrist Republicans forcing the vote in the House, have said they are close to a deal to bring back the tax credits, which expired at the end of 2025, and extend the open enrollment period.

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The Senate will vote next week on a bipartisan war powers resolution to block President Trump from continuing military action against Venezuela — a vote that takes on heightened importance after U.S. forces attacked the South American nation and arrested President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday.

The resolution to block the administration from engaging in further hostilities against Venezuela is privileged, which means Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) cannot stop it from coming to the floor.

The measure is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

It needs only a simple majority to pass the Senate.

“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy and trade,” Kaine said in a statement. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.

“We’ve entered the 250th year of American democracy and cannot allow it to devolve into the tyranny that our founders fought to escape,” the senator added.

Schiff warned that Trump’s action against Maduro risks plunging the region into “chaos.”

“Acting without Congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” the California Democrat said in a statement.

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Outgoing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Friday slammed President Trump’s threat to intervene in Iran as it cracks down on anti-government protests. 

Greene said on the social platform X that Trump’s pledge, along with Israeli billionaire Shlomo Kramer telling CNBC that the federal government should “limit the First Amendment” by cracking down on speech on social media, is “everything we voted against” in 2024.

“The focus should be on tax dollars here at home and defending our God given freedoms and rights,” added Greene, who is departing Congress on Monday after a falling out with Trump.

The president vowed on Truth Social earlier Friday that the U.S. will “rescue” protesters if the Iranian regime takes violent action against them. He also said the U.S. is “locked and loaded and ready to go” if the Islamic Republic’s government kills more demonstrators. 

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, argued on X that the president’s remarks make U.S. troops in the region “legitimate targets” for the Iranian military.

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MAGA Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has taken a rare swipe at President Trump for using the first veto of his second term to reject a unanimously approved bill she co-sponsored to bring more water to rural communities in her home state.

The firebrand congresswoman expressed concern that Trump’s veto was motivated by “political retribution,” with some of the president’s critics citing a local 2020 case of alleged election fraud that hasn’t gone to his liking and Boebert’s tough stance on the Jeffrey Epstein files.

“President Trump decided to veto a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why?” Boebert vented in a statement Tuesday, the day after the veto.

“I must have missed the rally where he stood in Colorado and promised to personally derail critical water infrastructure projects. My bad, I thought the campaign was about lowering costs and cutting red tape.”

The bill in question, the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, had cleared both the House and Senate unanimously.

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Former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) announced Tuesday he has been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

The former two-term senator, 53, wrote in a lengthy social media post that he received the diagnosis last week.

“This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die,” Sasse continued. “Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.”

“I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, ‘Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.’ Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all,” he added.

The Nebraska Republican added, “I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight.”

“One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more,” he wrote near the end of the post. “Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.”

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Representative Delia Ramirez, an Illinois Democrat, demanded on Thursday that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem either resign or face impeachment.

The congresswoman requested that House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, carry out an investigation into Noem’s leadership of DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agencies spearheading the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy.

“Under Secretary Kristi Noem’s leadership, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has done irreversible harm to our constituents, trampling the rights of all people and disregarding the rule of law,” Ramirez wrote to lawmakers in a letter.

Ramirez accused Noem of misleading Congress and the public, misusing congressionally appropriated resources, and disregarding court orders and legislative oversight. She pointed to reports that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents, contradicting Noem’s claims that enforcement targets only those in the country illegally.

Her request seeks a full inquiry into whether Noem made false statements to Congress, mishandled departmental resources, or violated constitutional limits on executive authority.

“Your options are limited. You either resign, Trump fires you, or you will be impeached,” Ramirez said at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday.

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