Tag: gop
'Fascinating' GOP Split Over Impending Tik-Tok Ban

'Fascinating' GOP Split Over Impending Tik-Tok Ban

Republican senators are at odds over the looming ban of the social media website, TikTok, expected to take place Sunday, January 19 if the US Supreme Court doesn't stop or delay it.

Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio wrote via X on Thursday, "Fascinating political dynamics on TikTok. [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer (D-NY) just now backed a delay in implementation of the TikTok forced divestiture law that Congress passed last year, effectively siding with Trump. [Senator] Tom Cotton (R-AR) , Intel chair and No. 3 in leadership, blocked an effort to extend the deadline yesterday."

Desiderio also noted that after Senator [Ed] Markey (D-MA) attempted to extend the deadline, Cotton said: "Let me be crystal clear: there will be no extensions, no concessions, and no compromises for TikTok. ByteDance and the Chinese Communists had plenty of time to make a deal."

The Punchbowl News reporter added that he "asked [Senator Marco] Rubio (R-FL) last week about [President-elect Donald] Trump’s posture on TikTok," and found that the GOP lawmaker changed his position on the matter.

"Rubio is about to be secretary of State and was Congress’ loudest critic of TikTok & the national security risks associated with it," Deseterio wrote via X.

"If I’m confirmed as secretary of State, I’ll work for the president," Rubio said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Bannon's 'Woke Right' Drives Split In MAGA Movement

Bannon's 'Woke Right' Drives Split In MAGA Movement

During the United States' 2024 presidential race, much of the Republican Party rallied about Donald Trump's campaign. A long list of Never Trump conservatives endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, but they tended to be people who were no longer influential figures in the GOP.

President-elect Trump's victory was not the "landslide" his supporters say it was; he won the popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent. But he has the support of most Republicans in Congress.

In an article published by the London Evening Standardon January 7, however, journalist Sarah Baxter (who heads the Marie Colvin Center in upstate New York) argues that major divisions are emerging in the MAGA movement as Trump prepares for his return to the White House.

"The fall-out is already consuming the MAGA movement and has led to a split between nativist flame-throwers like Steve Bannon and globalist tech-bros like Elon Musk, as they wrestle for power and influence in the second Trump era," Baxter explains. "Musk, the world's richest man and biggest troll with his own platform, X, has the advantage for now, but the spat has the potential to tear MAGA apart."

Part of this MAGA infighting, according to Baxter, is what she calls the "rise of the woke right" — which she describes as MAGA Republicans who have strong feelings of victimhood.

"Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, has identified five key features of the new woke right," Baxter writes. "These boil down to an obsession with identity politics; an ingrained sense of victimhood; a preoccupation with microaggressions; support for affirmative action for one’s own tribe; and a zero-sum mindset — somebody wins, somebody loses."

Baxter adds, "As with the far left, it can extend to glorifying foreign autocracies, such as Russia and Hungary."

Baxter describes "patriotic correctness" as "the right's version of political correctness."

"The biggest crybaby 'victims' are the January 6 rioters and their defenders, who have partially succeeded in rewriting the history of that day," Baxter says. "Those awaiting pardons by Trump fancifully promote themselves as unfairly punished patriots who stood up for 'We the People' in defense of the U.S. Constitution against hordes of Antifa and agent provocateurs in the FBI and 'deep state'…. The left's embrace of cancel culture has been enthusiastically adopted by the right."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Divisions Within GOP Are Threatening Trump's Tax Cut Package

Divisions Within GOP Are Threatening Trump's Tax Cut Package

President-elect Donald Trump has been calling for his GOP allies to pass "one powerful bill" that will tackle a variety of his legislative goals after he returns to the White House, from tax cuts to immigration and the U.S./Mexico border.

But some GOP senators, according to Politico, aren't as enthusiastic about the possibility of one big megabill as Republicans in the House of Representatives. And Bloomberg News reports that some Trump allies believe there is too much "infighting" among Republicans in Congress for the president-elect to get everything he wants on taxes in 2025.

In an article published on Wednesday, January 8, Bloomberg reporters Nancy Cook, Steven T. Dennis, and Billy House explain, "Republicans broadly agree that there's little room for error on what is a rare opportunity for the GOP to update the tax code without having to make any concessions to Democrats. There’s also time pressure: households and privately-held businesses will see their Internal Revenue Service bills rise if Congress doesn’t act by the end of the year. But Republicans openly disagree on how to meet that deadline."

The journalists add, "Hashing out those differences is likely to be a key topic of conversation later Wednesday when Trump meets with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill."

Cook, Dennis, and House note that Stephen Miller, Trump's pick for deputy White House chief of staff, has "pushed lawmakers to first pursue a border security bill" — and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) agrees.

"That pits them against House Republicans, many of whom want to cram all the party’s legislative goals — immigration, energy production and taxes — into a singular bill," according to the Bloomberg News journalists. "That's an approach that yields to the reality that the tiny House GOP majority — a fractious group of lawmakers willing to torch members of their own party during heated disputes — will have a hard time passing even one bill, let alone two."

Cook, Dennis and House point out that near the end of the 2024 presidential race, Trump, "promised to extend the personal tax cuts from 2017 and expand the state and local tax deduction, while also creating new tax breaks like no taxes on tips, overtime pay or Social Security checks."

"Trump has vowed to Wall Street executives that he would reduce the corporate tax rate to as low as 15 percent," the Bloomberg reporters observe. "That laundry list of promises surprised even some of his closest economic advisers, who privately said Trump was unlikely to turn all of this rhetoric into reality."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Tulsi Gabbard

Senate Democrats Stall Hearings On Tulsi Gabbard Nomination

As the Senate GOP seeks to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration in less that two weeks, Democrats are blocking the way to a confirmation date, according to Politico.

Per the report, "Committee rules stipulate that vetting paperwork for the nominees must be received by the panel at least one week before the confirmation hearings. But snow and office closures at the Office of Governmental Ethics have slowed civil servants from processing some of the necessary vetting paperwork for" the MAGA nominee.

Democrats are so far unwilling to waive the rules.

In addition to the "key paperwork" necessary for the former Democratic lawmaker's confirmation, CNN reports that an FBI check is also needed, "according to two sources familiar with the matter."

According to CNN, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton's (R-AR) spokesperson told the news outlet that Cotton "'intends to hold these hearings before Inauguration Day,' a timeline that would mean a hearing would need to take place either this week or next for Gabbard.'"

Critics of Gabbard, Politico notes, point to "her lack of intelligence experience, sympathetic comments about Russia and for once taking a secret trip to meet with Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad," as reasons the ex-Democrat is not suited for the job.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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