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Senate GOP Support for Same-Sex Marriage Bill May Be Higher Than Thought – but It’s a ‘Waste of Time’ Says Marco Rubio

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Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to put the same-sex marriage protection bill to a full floor vote quickly, after it passed the House Tuesday by a strong 267-157 margin, including 49 Republican votes. While there aren’t currently enough votes in the Senate to pass the bill, at first glance it’s looking like it may become possible. The legislation, which does not make same-sex marriage the law of the land, protects existing marriages at the federal and state level.

Reporters are polling GOP Senators, and finding more support than some may have originally anticipated.

“As of today, only 4 Republicans expressed support/openness for codifying protections for gay marriage,” reports HuffPost senior politics reporter Igor Bobic. He says the four Senators are Susan  Collins (ME), Rob Portman (OH), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Thom Tillis (NC).

READ MORE: Matt Gaetz Votes Against Protecting Same-Sex Marriages After Declaring Just Days Ago ‘Families Are Defined by Love’

But Bobic also talked to Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), who serves in Republican Senate leadership. She suggested she might be a yes.

“Ernst says she hasn’t seen the House bill but is ‘keeping an open mind.’ Asked if she supports gay marriage, Ernst said: ‘I have a good number of very close friends that are same-sex married.'”

Bobic reports Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said “he doesn’t think House gay marriage bill is necessary,” but quotes him saying: “I think there’s a difference between matrimony as a sacrament and a legal marriage and so if someone wants to do that type of a partnership, I’m not opposed.”

READ MORE: Senate Republicans Refuse to Commit to Making Basic Rights, Including Interracial and Same-Sex Marriage, the Law

Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri “says he supports gay marriage but wants to look at the House bill. He noted it’s currently protected by the court.”

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) is “noncommittal,” Bobic reports.

“Given the fact that the law is settled on this,” Romney said, “I don’t think we need to lose sleep over it unless there were a development that suggested the law was going to be changed.”

READ MORE: Popular ‘Radical Conservative’ Ben Shapiro Calls on Supreme Court to Overturn Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

When Romney was the Governor of Massachusetts that state became the first in the nation to make same-sex marriage legal. Romney was  reportedly opposed to meeting with LGBTQ activists but finally did, and reportedly was surprised to learn why they wanted marriage to be legal.

I didn’t know you had families,” Gov. Romney told the gay parents in 2004.

While the Supreme Court has not overturned its 2015 Obegefell ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas stated in his concurring opinion overturning Roe v. Wade that rulings finding constitutional rights for same-sex marriage, same-sex relations, and contraception were wrongly-decided “errors” that should be “reviewed.”

READ MORE: Tennessee Republicans Voting to Bypass Obergefell With Bill That Creates All-Age Marriages

Ernst, Blunt, and Rounds could bring the number of Republicans to seven. Ten would be needed to avoid a filibuster, assuming every Senate Democrat votes yes.

Bobic notes Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is a no.

“I will support the Defense of Marriage Act,” he said, referring to the law the Supreme Court overturned, which barred the federal government from recognizing legal same-sex marriages and allowed states to not recognize them as well.

Meanwhile, CNN’s Manu Raju reports Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is a hard no.

“Marco Rubio told me that he is a NO on House’s same-sex marriage bill, calling it a ‘stupid waste of time.'”

Rubio ran for re-election after losing the 2016 GOP nomination for president and after promising if he was not elected president he would never run for any elected office ever again. He reneged on that promise in the days after the Pulse nightclub massacre, which he cited as the reason he was needed back in the Senate. At the time it was the the deadliest anti-LGBTQ hate crime in America, the second-worst mass shooting by a single gunman in American history, and the second deadliest terror attack in America, after the 9/11 attacks.

Sen. Rubio has not advanced any gun safety legislation nor has he voted for any LGBTQ civil rights bill. In fact, Rubio voiced strong support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill. And last month he voted against the Senate’s gun safety bill that passed with a bipartisan majority of 65-33.

Senator Rubio late last week announced legislation that would require men to provide child support from the moment of conception, effectively making the law of the land that fetuses are full human beings afforded all the rights of every other person in America.

Pulse nightclub survivor Brandon Wolf, now the press secretary for Equality Florida, blasted Sen. Rubio.

“The man who used the murders of 49 mostly-LGBTQ people of color to revive his flailing political career says codifying marriage equality is a ‘stupid waste of time’? Marco Rubio’s career disgraces those whose backs he stepped on to get there.”

UPDATE: 2:29 PM ET –
After publication CNN’s Manu Raju reports: “Growing expectation in Senate that there will be 60 votes to break a filibuster on gay marriage. While 10 Rs haven’t said they would vote YES, it’s clear momentum is moving in that direction based on interviews. Thune, who is undecided, thinks it may pass.”

 

 

 

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Republican Says Trump on Immigration Could Be Like Lincoln Was for Slavery

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U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) is calling on President Donald Trump to support her bipartisan bill that would grant temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants, allowing them to remain in the United States. On immigration, Congresswoman Salazar says Trump could be just like Reagan was for communism or Lincoln was for slavery.

“There’s no way we can grow as a country and continue being the number one economy in the world if we don’t have hands,” Salazar said, referring to immigrant workers. “So let’s be intelligent. Let’s just bring them out of the shadows, make them pay—something that they’re not paying right now. Make them pay a fine, no federal programs, and they can go home for business, and they can buy a home.”

Her plan, the Dignity Act, would not provide amnesty or a path to citizenship. But, she says, it “offers a strong, commonsense approach and focused on putting American interests first.”

READ MORE: ‘Go Home’: Noem Tells Farmers to Help Their Undocumented Workers ‘Self Deport’

Salazar praised President Trump, saying with his so-called One Big beautiful Bill, “the economy is going to gonna burst, just like it happened in 2019.”

“I go back to the president. The president is the guy who can make this happen. There is no other president like Trump. Look what he did with Iran. Look what he did Venezuela, with China.”

“So I have no doubt, I have faith that he could be for immigration, what Lincoln was for slavery, and Reagan was for communism.”

Critics blasted Salazar’s comparisons.

“Rep. Salazar has used this line a few times and while I understand what she *means* to say I respectfully submit that she has not thought through the implications of what she *actually* said,” remarked attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. He added: “hint: Reagan was not good for Communism and Lincoln was not good for slavery.”

“Maria Salazar comparing Trump to Lincoln on slavery and Reagan on communism is beyond absurd,” wrote investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze. “Lincoln fought to end human bondage. Reagan opposed totalitarian regimes. Trump put kids in cages, demonized immigrants, and ran on fear, not freedom. History will remember the difference. Seems like she meant to compare Trump to Nixon, not Lincoln.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Forget He Appointed Fed Chair — Denies Rumors He May Fire Him

 

 

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‘Go Home’: Noem Tells Farmers to Help Their Undocumented Workers ‘Self Deport’

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U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has a blunt message for undocumented farmworkers: “Go home.” She’s urging farmers to assist in the process—by helping those workers “self-deport.”

“I would encourage everybody,” Secretary Noem said on Wednesday, “if people are here in this country illegally, go home.”

“I mean, the law is the law, and we are upholding the law, and, the President is very clear that he doesn’t believe that the law should apply to some people and not to others—that there should be consequences for some people and not for others,” she said.

President Donald Trump has said that he and his administration are working on a plan to help farmers keep their undocumented workers, many of whom, he said, are “almost impossible to replace.” Trump suggested some form of sponsorship might be possible in the future, where farmers would be responsible for their workers who are undocumented.

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Forget He Appointed Fed Chair — Denies Rumors He May Fire Him

Noem said that every undocumented person, including the undocumented farm workers—has “the opportunity right now to self deport.”

“We will buy their plane ticket and when they land, they will be able to get $1,000 in their hand to care for their families, and they get the chance to come back, she claimed. Federal law places bans on some of those trying to return, in some cases for up to ten years.

“And so, that’s what I think is so remarkable, is that we will let them come back the right way, and we’re facilitating that today,” she insisted.  “So every individual that’s here in this country that’s concerned, or every farmer out there that has somebody that’s working for them, that’s concerned, you know, you know, work with getting them home, so they can come back and get in the right way.”

READ MORE: ‘Divine Providence’: Johnson Paints Trump as ‘Miraculously’ Spared by God

Jeremy Konyndyk is the president of Refugees International.

He says, “Farmers face financial ruin over deportations.”

Noem’s “claim that people can ‘come back’ after self-deporting is ludicrous on its face,” Konyndyk adds. “Why then deport in the first place? And in any case, that does nothing for farmers who need crops picked NOW.”

President Donald Trump’s favorability on immigration continues to drop. What was once among his most positive categories now has him underwater.

“About half (52%) of Americans think that Trump’s approach to immigration policy is too harsh; 36% think it is about right and 7% think it is too soft,” according to a YouGov poll report published Tuesday. “At the start of Trump’s term, significantly fewer — 40% — thought his approach to immigration was too harsh; 43% thought it was about right and 4% said it was too soft. The largest shift has been among Independents: 57% currently think Trump’s approach is too harsh, up from 36% in January.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Popping Champagne’: Russia Scoffs, Snubs Trump’s 100% Tariff Ultimatum

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump Appears to Forget He Appointed Fed Chair — Denies Rumors He May Fire Him

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President Donald Trump is denying multiple reports that he intends to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, even as he continues to criticize him and express frustration over the Fed’s refusal to cut interest rates to the levels he has demanded. The Federal Reserve is an independent central bank, and the President has no legal authority to dictate its actions. On Wednesday, Trump criticized Powell, appeared to forget that he appointed him, and blamed President Joe Biden for his nomination.

Should Trump attempt to fire Powell, it would be an unprecedented move. The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated there are limits to the President’s authority to remove Fed officials.

On Tuesday evening, in a meeting with Republican lawmakers, Trump asked their opinion of firing Powell, whom he nominated in late 2017. Powell was renominated by President Joe Biden in 2021. The chairman of the Federal Reserve serves four-year terms, and Powell’s expires next year.

READ MORE: ‘Loathsome’: Fox Host’s ‘What Up, My Nazi?’ Rant Slammed by Civil Rights Icon

“The President asked lawmakers how they felt about firing the Fed Chair. They expressed approval for firing him. The President indicated he likely will soon,” a senior White House official told CNBC, NBC News reported.

“A recent Supreme Court decision indicated that the president does not have the authority to remove Fed officials at will,” NBC also reported.

But CNBC later reported that Trump denies he plans to fire Powell.

“We’re not planning on doing it,” he said. “It’s highly unlikely.”

Minutes ago, in the Oval Office, Trump appeared to forget he had been the first to nominate Powell as Fed chair. He told reporters that Powell is a “terrible Fed chair,” and he was surprised he had even been appointed. Trump added, “I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him.”

Responding to the video (below) the House Ways and Means Democrats asked, “Did he forget?”

U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) wrote: “Legit question, does he have memory issues? Or does he remember but doesn’t want people to know that this is his fed chair? I just want a normal leader in this job….”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Divine Providence’: Johnson Paints Trump as ‘Miraculously’ Spared by God

Image via Reuters

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