Category: The News And Times – thenewsandtimes.com

The White House on Thursday bashed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) for warning that she won’t vote to fund the government if Congress doesn’t hold a vote on an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, calling her the “hardcore fringe” of the Republican Party.

“The last thing the American people deserve is for extreme House members to trigger a government shutdown that hurts our economy, undermines our disaster preparedness, and forces our troops to work without guaranteed pay,” spokesperson Andrew Bates said. 

Greene announced Thursday that she would not vote to fund the government and avoid a shutdown if the House doesn’t vote to open the impeachment inquiry. She also put other conditions on her vote, including ending funding for the war in Ukraine, eliminating funding for what she called the “weaponization” of government and eliminating coronavirus-related mandates.

“The House Republicans responsible for keeping the government open already made a promise to the American public about government funding, and it would be a shame for them to break their word and fail the country because they caved to the hardcore fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high stakes needs Americans care about deeply – like fighting fentanyl trafficking, protecting our national security, and funding [the Federal Emergency Management Agency],” Bates said.

Biden on Thursday called for a short-term continuing resolution, or a CR, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has also said will be necessary to fund the government beyond Sept. 30. But, some hard-line Republicans are embracing the possibility of a shutdown and brushing off concerns over the fast-approaching deadline.

At the same time, McCarthy is increasingly signaling his intent to launch an impeachment inquiry when the House returns in September.

The House has cleared just one of 12 regular appropriations bills, while the Senate has not cleared any. The House will be in session for just 11 legislative days until the end of fiscal 2023.

Biden has requested Congress approve roughly $40 billion in supplemental spending, which includes $24 billion in military, financial and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine. 

He has also requested $12 billion in supplemental funds to ensure the Federal Emergency Management Agency has enough money to respond to natural disasters, as well as to handle future disasters, asks that have become more pressing in the wake of the Maui wildfires and Hurricane Idalia.

Additionally, as the Washington Post first reported, the new funding requests include an additional $1.4 billion to fund nutritional aid programs for low-income families, as well as $1.9 billion for the Office of Refugee Resettlement to handle thousands of new arrivals from Haiti and Cuba.

98-year-old German man is charged with accessory to murder at Nazi concentration camp  New York Post

Top U.S. Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer on Friday said House Republicans would be to blame if lawmakers are unable to reach a deal to keep the government funded past Sept. 30, triggering the fourth partial shutdown of federal agencies in a decade.

“We cannot afford the brinkmanship or hostage-taking we saw from House Republicans earlier this year when they pushed our country to the brink of default to appease the most extreme members of their party,” Schumer said in an open letter to colleagues on Friday.

“When the Senate returns next week, our focus will be on funding the government and preventing House Republican extremists from forcing a government shutdown.”

The Senate returns to Washington on Tuesday with the House of Representatives coming a week later, leaving lawmakers little time to agree on a deal to keep the federal government funded past the months’ end. Republicans say sharp cuts in spending are needed to stem the nation’s growing $31.4 trillion national debt.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, bending to the will of a small group of hardline conservatives, is pushing to cut discretionary spending to a fiscal 2022 level of $1.47 trillion, $120 billion less than top House Republican Kevin McCarthy and Democratic President Joe Biden agreed to earlier this year.

* The White House on Thursday urged Congress to hammer out a short-term funding measure called a “continuing resolution” to avoid a shutdown starting Oct. 1.

* There is disagreement within the House Republican caucus about the depth of the proposed cuts, with one moderate Republican likening them to a “root canal.”

* Goldman Sachs analysts said earlier this month that they view a shutdown as “more likely than not.”

The FAA says this could be the third-busiest travel weekend of the year so far, while AAA warns we could see more traffic on the roads than in years. Here’s what to know if you’re flying or driving.

(Image credit: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Ex-ITV journalist, who lasted less than a year in role, says No 10 is ‘demanding and high-pressure place to work’

Rishi Sunak’s director of communications has quit her role, as Downing Street’s mini-reshuffle took an internal turn.

The former ITV journalist, Amber de Botton, who was brought in to salvage the government’s sinking reputation when Sunak took over from Liz Truss as prime minister, announced on Friday she had “decided it is the right time to move on”.

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Putin, Prigozhin and the shadow of Anastasia  Eurasia Review

Russia-led alliance holds military drills in Belarus  The Washington Post

U.S. colleges often slash thousands of dollars off the “sticker price” to entice students to enroll. The more options a student has, the bigger the discount a college needs to offer. However, the savings have disproportionately gone to white and Asian applicants.

“Put merit in quotation marks,” says one admissions official. “It’s not really about rewarding students for their wonderful performance in high school, as much as it is trying to change that student’s enrollment decision.”

Read more from Jill Barshay in The Hechinger Report. (July 2023)

Despite a bomb threat on their first day of school, and the now common missile and drone attacks from Russia, children in Kyiv were happy to be back in their classrooms

The classes, “Important Conversations” were introduced after the start of the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine to boost patriotic sentiment.