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Biden: ‘We Need a New Congress’ if This One Refuses to Act on Gun Violence

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A fiery and determined President Joe Biden declared if the Republican-majority House and Democratic-majority Senate cannot pass legislation to combat gun violence they should be replaced with lawmakers who will.

“Congress needs to act. Let me be clear about something: If this Congress refuses to act we need a new Congress,” President Biden told cheering attendees at the National Safer Communities Summit in West Hartford, Connecticut on Friday, where he spoke passionately for 30 minutes before spending time with audience members.

“And we need states to act as well. Not every state has a governor as competent as Governor Lamont, and I mean that,” the President continued, praising the Connecticut Democrat who has signed numerous bills to strengthen gun violence prevention efforts into law, the latest just ten days ago.

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis: I Would Have Loved to Hang Out With Jesus and His Disciples – America Needs More God

President Biden said governors across the country “can do a lot more,” and pointed to Gov. Ned Lamont’s “bipartisan legislation with more than a dozen measures to improve gun safety.”

The President was determined but also optimistic and even jovial.

He acknowledged many of the “people here who have been impacted by gun violence lost someone they loved, fought so hard for so many years. A lot of you are tired, tired, I get it. Try being 110 and doing it again,” Biden joked, while mocking those who have tried to make his age a campaign issue.

“All kidding aside, a lot of people are frustrated. My mother, God love her, all five-foot-one,” he said, “looked at me said ‘Joey, never bow. Never bend, never yield. Never kneel.’ We never will on this issue. Never, never, never, never never.”

READ MORE: Trump Accuses US Government of Waging ‘Psychological Warfare Campaigns’ Against Americans

“Folks are we ever gonna make progress we need to make? I’m here to tell you we cannot give up.”

“I still remember the people I’ve met with in Newtown, in Orlando, and Las Vegas. In Pittsburgh, in Charleston. Parkland, El Paso, Uvalde Buffalo, Monterey Park and so many other places that never make the headlines. I’ve never forgotten them and I never will forget them. And I’ll never stop fighting for them, I promise you and I believe this is true that everyone in this room, you will never stop fighting for them as well.”

“We will ban assault weapons in this country. We will ban multi-round magazines. We will hold gun makers liable. We will beat the gun industry. We will beat big money that sits behind them. And the politicians who refuse to stand up and act. It won’t be easy. I have no illusions how fiercely they’ll fight back but I also have no illusions about the people in this room. Look at what you’ve already done here in Connecticut and around the country. Look at the movement that you built. Look at the people you’ve helped elect. Look at the progress you’ve made in state houses. Look at all the mothers organizing all across the country. Listen to the young people who’ve spoken out here today. They’re speaking for a whole generation.”

Watch clips of President Biden’s speech above or at this link, or his full speech at C-SPAN.

 

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House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman

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The House Committee on Ethics has announced it is extending its investigation into U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) after an initial referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics. Congressman Jackson is a self-described “ultra-MAGA” Republican who has spread various conspiracy theories and was demoted by the Pentagon after his retirement from the military.

While the Ethics Committee is always reserved in its announcements, and did not state the issue it is investigating, it did note it will “announce its course of action in this matter on or before Monday, June 24, 2024.” Thursday’s announcement follows announcements in April and May of 2022 confirming its investigation into Rep. Jackson.

In September of 2021 the Office of Congressional Ethics, a separate, nonpartisan, and independent office, launched an investigation into Congressman Jackson, the former Physician to the President under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Dr. Jackson also served as the Chief Medical Advisor to the President under Trump, a position created by the now-indicted ex-president.

In May of 2022 the Office of Congressional Ethics released documents stating it had “found ‘substantial reason to believe’ Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) spent campaign funds on personal expenses,” Forbes reported at the time.

READ MORE: ‘Literally Willing to Take Bribes’: Report of Trump Promise to Big Oil Fuels Concerns

The Office had referred its findings to the House Ethics Committee one month earlier.

Congressman Jackson “refused to cooperate with the review,” CNN reported in 2022, noting it was “not the first time Jackson has come under scrutiny. Last year, the Pentagon inspector general outlined a scathing critique of his behavior, saying he drank alcohol and took sleeping pills while serving as a White House physician – and made ‘sexual and denigrating’ comments about a female subordinate. Jackson disputed the report’s findings.”

The New York Times in March reported on Dr. Jackson’s military demotion.

“In a report completed three years ago, the Pentagon found that Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson had mistreated subordinates while serving as the White House physician and drank and took sleeping pills on the job. The report recommended that he face discipline,” according to The Times. “Now it turns out that the Navy quietly punished him the next year. Though he had retired from the military in 2019, he was demoted to captain — a sanction that he has not publicly acknowledged.”

READ MORE: ‘Greatest Challenge of Our Generation’: Johnson Vows to ‘Round Up’ 11 Million Undocumented People

Last summer at a Texas rodeo Congressman Jackson attempted to assist a person experiencing a medical event, but was “briefly detained” by law enforcement officers, his office stated, after reportedly refusing to move away from the woman.

According to The Texas Tribune, Jackson spewed multiple profanities at a trooper.

“’You are a f*cking full-on dick!’ Jackson told the trooper after being brought off the ground, according to bodycam footage provided by the Department of Public Safety. ‘You better recalculate, motherf*cker!'”

“I’m gonna call the governor tomorrow and I’m gonna talk to him about this sh*t because this is f*ckin’ ridiculous,” Jackson also reportedly said. “F*ckin’ ridiculous.”

The Tribune reported Jackson’s “office has emphasized he was ‘not drinking,’ though the sheriff’s report challenges that assertion.”

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

 

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‘Literally Willing to Take Bribes’: Report of Trump Promise to Big Oil Fuels Concerns

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Bombshell reports from The Washington Post and Politico are fueling concerns over the promises 2024 Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump reportedly has been making to “Big Oil.”

“What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign,” is The Washington Post’s headline.

“Donald Trump has pledged to scrap President Biden’s policies on electric vehicles and wind energy, as well as other initiatives opposed by the fossil fuel industry,” The Post reported.

“You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.”

“Giving $1 billion would be a ‘deal,’ Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people,” The Post added.

“Political contributing is often a type of legalized bribery,” The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo remarked. “But the way Trump is so explicit about making a ‘deal’ is going to raise eyebrows.”

READ MORE: ‘Greatest Challenge of Our Generation’: Johnson Vows to ‘Round Up’ 11 Million Undocumented People

It has.

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, an attorney and University of California, Berkeley professor of public policy issued this warning:

“Trump asked Big Oil execs to give him $1 billion for his campaign. He promised lower taxes and a rollback of Biden’s climate regulations and clean energy programs in return. Trump is literally willing to take bribes in exchange for the destruction of the planet. Be warned,” Reich wrote.

U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI) also issued a warning: “Donald Trump is saying the quiet part out loud. Re-electing him will guarantee ‘deals’ that work against our climate future. He cares more about campaign donations from oil tycoons than the fate of future generations and the health of our planet. Take him at his word.”

“We cannot believe this,” wrote government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “Donald Trump essentially told a room full of oil executives ‘raise a billion dollars for me and I’ll get rid of the regulations that you want.’ This is blatantly corrupt behavior.”

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

Former LA Times reporter Steve Weinstein called it, “Bribery straight up.”

“Wow,” exclaimed U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) “a report today finds donald trump demanded a straight up billion dollar bribe from oil executives. Republicans want to sell you out to big oil to line their pockets.”

Liberal Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century wrote: “New reporting uncovered Trump is already planning to sell the White House to the highest bidder. He’s demanding a $1 billion bribe from oil execs in exchange for massive tax cuts and the repeal of environmental protections and clean energy investments.”

Josh Dorner, a communications executive, responded to the Washington Post’s Heather Long’s summation of the paper’s report, by writing: “Bribery, how does it work?”

Marketing executive Jason Karsh, also responding to Long’s post, wrote: “How cool is it to have a presidential candidate so broke and so corrupt that he’s asking for bribes out in the open. I mean, he’s a Republican so nothing will happen, but this is so clearly what the founders intended, it’s just … *wipes a tear*”

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom commented, “Big Oil is literally writing up Executive Orders for Trump to sign on Day 1 — with the promise of $1 billion in return. He’s giving away our planet in return for cash. Have we just accepted this as the new norm??”

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Laurie Garrett in a lengthy social media thread reached back into history and compared Trump’s alleged billion-dollar request to the Teapot Dome scandal. “Until now, it was the biggest presidential corruption case in US history,” she wrote.

“The Teapot Dome Scandal was, in the 1920s, the greatest threat to the integrity of the US Presidency the Nation had experienced. Not only was Big Oil bribery unfolding, but Harding, a golfer and womanizer, & had a child out of wedlock,” she noted in one post.

See the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Ran a Bribery Center Blocks From the White House’: Comer Mocked for Claiming No Evidence of Trump Influence Peddling

 

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‘Greatest Challenge of Our Generation’: Johnson Vows to ‘Round Up’ 11 Million Undocumented People

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Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, less than 24 hours after Democrats saved his job in a “motion to vacate” vote, vowed to “round up” and likely deport all of the estimated 11 million undocumented or unauthorized people living or working in the United States of America.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday told Johnson, “the President of the United States, the former president who wants to be the next president, said one of his plans in a talk to Time Magazine is to round up the 11 to 15 million illegals, and then go through them and find out who belongs here and who doesn’t. Would you support that?”

“Absolutely,” Johnson, a Christian nationalist, immediately replied. “And President Trump and I’ve talked about this at length, but the challenge we’ll have is finding them. Brian, as you know, they’ve been spread out everywhere, the DHS, Department of Homeland Security, and [Secretary] Mayorkas, the reason we impeached him is because he’s an abject failure and they’re not keeping track of where these people are. So we will have the greatest challenge of our generation to try to find them to round them up first, and that’s a very serious problem.”

Johnson’s promise to “round up” undocumented immigrants also comes less than 24 hours after he appeared on the steps of the Capitol to promote legislation making it illegal for non-U.S. citizens to vote, despite there being a federal law on the books that already does so.

READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil

“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that’s easily provable. We don’t have that number,” Johnson falsely told reporters.

Last month, in a joint press conference with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Johnson told reporters Democrats are trying to turn undocumented immigrants into voters.

“We only want U.S. citizens to vote in U.S. elections, but there are some Democrats who don’t want to do that. We believe that one of their designs, one of the reasons for this open border, which everybody asked all around the country, why would they do this? Why would they allow all this chaos? Why the violence? Because they want to turn these people into voters.”

Undocumented immigrants cannot legally vote in federal elections, and studies show the number who do is extremely small.

Meanwhile, the negative impacts on the U.S. economy should Trump deport the nation’s undocumented population would be devastating.

According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, “Roughly Half of Hired Crop Farmworkers Lack Legal Immigration Status.”

The Center for Migration Studies in March examined the effects of mass deportation, versus giving the undocumented legal status.

“The undocumented population comprises 5 percent of the workforce in the United States, working in industries such as agriculture, construction, service, entertainment, and health-care. On a micro level, they help manicure our lawns, take care of our children and grandchildren, clean our homes, wait on us at restaurants, and collect our trash. Without their labor, the US economy would experience a labor shortage which could not be replenished easily, and the costs of goods and services would rise,” CMS reported.

“In addition, the United States is facing a severe workforce shortage, with workers needed in a variety of industries. Mass deportations would only exacerbate these shortages. Moreover, cumulative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be reduced by 2.6 percent, or nearly $5 trillion over ten years if the 8.1 million undocumented workers were deported. If the undocumented population was legalized, however, the GDP would rise by $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. Finally, the nation’s housing market would be jeopardized because a high percentage of the 1.3 million mortgages held by households with undocumented immigrants would be in peril.”

Watch Johnson’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

 

 

 

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