Congressional Glance
The Trump administration is asking Congress to approve an additional $58m for security services to protect the members of the executive and judicial branches after the killing of Charlie Kirk, multiple outlets report. They also supported adding more money to protect members of Congress, but they deferred to the legislative branch on further steps.
News of the request comes as House Democrats prepare to hold a virtual security briefing on Sunday evening, following Kirk’s death. The briefing will be with the House sergeant at arms and the Capitol police chief.
Last week, rightwing activist and Trump ally Charlie Kirk was killed while speaking at an event at a university in Utah and a suspect was arrested. Despite the shooter’s motive still being unconfirmed, conservatives have expressed anger and concern, blaming liberals and leftwing activists for Kirk’s killing. The right has declared war on the left, leading prominent politicians to cancel events over safety concerns and threats.
Trump officials reportedly ask Congress for $58m in security after Kirk shooting
Senators say US is complicit in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza
Two Democratic senators claim they have reached the “inescapable conclusion” that Israel is acting on a systematic plan to destroy and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza to force locals to leave, and they say the US is complicit.
Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, both members of the Senate foreign relations committee, released their findings in a report on Thursday after returning from a congressional delegation to the Middle East where, they note, the destruction goes beyond bombs and bullets. They say they also found a systematic campaign to strangle humanitarian aid, which they call “using food as a weapon of war”.
“The Netanyahu government has gone far beyond targeting Hamas to imposing collective punishment on all the people of Gaza,” Van Hollen said at a Thursday press conference. “What they’re doing, and what we witnessed, is putting those goals into action.”
At least one hundred people have died from famine in Gaza, the United Nations said this week, citing the Gaza health ministry.
The senators, who visited Egypt, Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jordan, argue that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a deliberate strategy to ethnically cleanse the local population rather than collateral damage from the war against Hamas. Their report is titled The Netanyahu Government Is Implementing a Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians. America is Complicit. The World Must Stop It.
Democrat wins Virginia special election to replace deceased Rep. Gerry Connolly
Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw (D) on Tuesday won the special election to replace his former boss, the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), according to Decision Desk HQ.
Walkinshaw defeated Republican Stewart Whitson, an Army veteran and FBI agent.
Prior to being elected county supervisor in 2019, Walkinshaw served as Connolly’s chief of staff.
Connolly’s seat has been vacant since his death in May. Walkinshaw’s win narrows the Republican majority in the House to 219-213.
The vacancies have likely helped Republicans during crucial votes this year, including the vote to pass the GOP spending megabill, also known as President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” in May. The legislation passed by one vote.
Congress holds hearing on UAPs (or UFOs). What are they?
Four witnesses talked about seeing UFOs – or UAPs as they’re now known – in testimony given to the House Oversight Subcommittee on Sept. 9.The subcommittee heard their statements as part of an examination of a purportedly secret UFO retrieval program managed by the Pentagon. The hearing is the third in as many years since a fiery hearing in July 2023 reignited public fascination in mysterious airborne craft.
The government has rebranded UFOs with its preferred acronym of UAP – short for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Hours of compelling testimony about not just strange craft whizzing unchecked through U.S. airspace, but about a concerted effort of our government to capture and study those craft, does little to dispel those "X-Files"-esque associations. Especially in a nation where nearly half of Americans believe the U.S. government is concealing information about UFOs.
A look at some common UAPs reported in that period:
Utah’s congressional map must be redrawn now, judge rules
A judge has ruled that Utah lawmakers must proceed with redrawing the state’s congressional district map right away, pointing to Texas and California in rejecting their argument that the job can’t be done in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
The ruling keeps Utah firmly among states where partisan redistricting battles stand to tilt the outcome of the next congressional election.
Utah lawmakers were wrong to disregard an independent commission’s map in drawing one that has been used for the 2022 and 2024 elections, Salt Lake County District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled Aug. 25.
The map did away with a district in the Salt Lake City area that has swung between Republicans and Democrats in favor of a map where four districts, each with a piece of the urban corridor, have been won by Republicans with wide margins.
Top Democrat says intelligence briefing cancelled after attacks by far-right Laura Loomer
Senator Mark Warner said on Wednesday that a meeting he had scheduled at the headquarters of a US intelligence agency was cancelled following online attacks by the far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
Warner, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, was set to visit the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Virginia in what he described part of his “responsibility to provide oversight and support to our intelligence community”.
The administration rescinded the invitation after Loomer initiated a “campaign of baseless attacks” against him and the agency’s director, Trey Whitworth, he said.
“I can’t overstate how unprecedented and dangerous this is,” Warner said in a fundraising email. “This administration is taking its marching orders from Laura Loomer – a wackjob with a long history of outlandish fringe views, including 9/11 denialism, anti-Muslim harassment campaigns, and associations with white supremacists.”
Trump ‘surprised’ Israel lobby no longer has ‘total control’ over Congress
U.S. President Donald Trump told the Daily Caller last week that the pro-Israel lobby is no longer in “total control” over Congress.
“There was a time where you couldn’t speak bad. If you wanted to be a politician, you couldn’t speak badly,” Trump said, per a transcript that the publication released.
“But today, you have, you know, AOC plus three, and you have all these lunatics, and they’ve really, they’ve changed it.”
AOC refers to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a member of the far-left “squad” in Congress.
Ocasio-Cortez and the other “squad” members—Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—are among the Jewish state’s harshest critics on Capitol Hill.
“If you go back 15 years, probably that’s when it started,” Trump said. “Israel was the strongest lobby I’ve ever seen. They had total control over Congress, and now they don’t. You know, I’m a little surprised to see that.”
TVNL Comment: Is there no problem with a foreign country being in control of the US Congress? What in Heaven's name has happened to the US?
More Articles...
- Joni Ernst Taunted With Own Words After News Breaks She Won't Seek Reelection
- Trump rips ‘unconstitutional’ court order on Utah redistricting
- This Maine oysterman thinks Democrats are doing ‘jack’ about fascism. So he’s running for US Senate
- Greene issues scathing rebuke of conditions in Gaza: ‘I will not be silent about it’
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