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A trio of House Republicans on Monday introduced a resolution to censure and condemn Democratic Reps. Ilhan OmarIlhan OmarGreene apologizes for comparing vaccine rules to Holocaust House Republicans introduce resolution to censure the 'squad' The Memo: Democratic tensions will only get worse as left loses patience MORE (Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezAdams, Garcia lead in NYC mayor's race: poll House Republicans introduce resolution to censure the 'squad' This week: Democrats face fractures in spending fight MORE (N.Y.), Rashida TlaibRashida Harbi TlaibHouse Republicans introduce resolution to censure the 'squad' Progressives rally behind Omar while accusing her critics of bias Omar: I wasn't equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries MORE (Mich.) and Ayanna PressleyAyanna PressleyHouse Republicans introduce resolution to censure the 'squad' Progressives rally behind Omar while accusing her critics of bias House candidate in Chicago says gun violence prompted her to run MORE (Mass.) for what they call defending terrorist organizations and inciting anti-Semitic attacks across the United States.

The resolution, introduced by Reps. Michael WaltzMichael WaltzHouse Republicans introduce resolution to censure the 'squad' Overnight Defense: Ex-Pentagon chief defends Capitol attack response as GOP downplays violence | Austin, Biden confer with Israeli counterparts amid conflict with Hamas | Lawmakers press Pentagon officials on visas for Afghan partners Overnight Defense: Pentagon chief to press for Manchin's support on Colin Kahl | House Dems seek to limit transfer of military-grade gear to police MORE (R-Fla.), Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), cites a number of incidents involving the four lawmakers, sometimes referred to as the squad, including the most recent controversy surrounding Omar and her comments equating war crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel to those by the Taliban and Hamas terrorist groups.

The resolution also cites the four lawmakers referring to Israel as an apartheid state and points to Tlaib accusing the Israeli government of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.

We cannot turn a blind eye to Members of Congress openly defending terrorist attacks by Hamas against our close ally Israel nor their dangerous rhetoric which has contributed to anti-Semitic attacks across the country, Waltz said in a press release.

Banks sounded a similar note, saying in the release that the lawmakers have repeatedly denigrated America and our closest ally.

The most recent controversy involving the squad members began when Omar was questioning Secretary of State Antony BlinkenAntony BlinkenGreene apologizes for comparing vaccine rules to Holocaust Detainee fates hang over Biden meeting with Putin ICC relations with US undergoing 'reset' with Biden, prosecutor says MORE during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week about the International Criminal Court's (ICC) investigations of alleged crimes by the Taliban and the U.S. in Afghanistan, in addition to the accusations against Hamas and Israel in the Gaza conflict.

Omar, in a tweet with a clip of her questioning Blinken,wrote, "We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice."

We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.

We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.

I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice. pic.twitter.com/tUtxW5cIow

Omar, a Somali refugee and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, has since made efforts to clarify her remarks, saying she was not equating the U.S. and Israel with terrorist organizations.

On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations. To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel, she said in a statement.

In response, Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiNew Mexico Democrat Stansbury sworn into Haaland's old seat Greene apologizes for comparing vaccine rules to Holocaust Overnight Health Care: Biden pleads for more people to get vaccinated | Harris highlights COVID-19 vaccination safety | Novavax COVID-19 vaccine shown highly effective in trial MORE (D-Calif.) and her entire leadership team last week issued a rare joint statement that sought to quell the growing controversy while adding that drawing false equivalencies between democracies and groups that engage in terrorism, citing Hamas and the Taliban, foments prejudice andundermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all.

On Sunday, Pelosi said House leadership did not rebuke Omar, and called her a valued member of the caucus, during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union."

The censure resolution also follows a successful effort by House Democrats in February, when the chamber voted, largely along party lines, to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor GreeneMarjorie Taylor GreeneGOP efforts to downplay danger of Capitol riot increase The Memo: What now for anti-Trump Republicans? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she's meeting with Trump 'soon' in Florida MORE (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments for endorsing conspiracy theories, racist dogma and violence against Democratic politicians.

The Hill has reached out to Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley forcomment.

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House Republicans introduce resolution to censure the 'squad' | TheHill - The Hill

On June 8, Senate Democrats and Republicans came together to pass the $200-billion Innovation and Competition Act, a broad legislative package aimed at advancing the nations R&D competitiveness with China. The 68-32 vote was a rare bipartisan convergence on two frequent points of division: money and state involvement in the economy.

But thats not all that was striking about the vote. Also noteworthy is the bills proposed creation of 18 regional technology hubs to spur economic growth in new places, which represents the nations most significant foray into regional policy in decadesmaybe since the Great Depression.

For decades, Congress has neglected the nations sharpening regional divides. New economic trends spawned a growing gap between the dynamic, superstar metropolitan areas and everywhere else. Meanwhile, policymakers quibbled, argued, and stood by as chasms opened between income levels in coastal, tech-focused metro areas and those areas left behind.

A 2019 Brookings report documented that just five top innovation metro areasBoston, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, and San Jose, Calif.accounted for more than 90% of the nations innovation sector growth from 2005 to 2017.

But what to do to counter this dramatic divergence hasnt always been clear. Since the 1960s, Congress place-based responses have mostly amounted to limited, ad-hoc investments in grants, programs, and tax benefits that have been too small and too inconsistent to resolve the huge economic forces pulling the nation apart. What resulted has been inaction.

But now, senators from both sides of the aisle have come together to recognize the economic, social, and political crisis of interregional inequalityand endorse the use of place-based government action to counter it.

Lawmakers have drawn on arguments and ideas from Brookings and MIT professors Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson to respond to regional divergence by creating a set of place-based tech hubs in inland America aimed at catalyzing local economic growth. Originally, the bill proposed creating eight to 10 hubs scattered across the heartland at a cost of $10 billion over five years. By the time of the final vote, the number of hubs had doubled to at least 18, supported by the same budgetreflecting a push from smaller states senators so that more towns and rural areas could get a slice of federal R&D spending.

Despite the change, something approaching a bipartisan consensus about the nations regional divergence problem seems to have coalesced. A preponderance of senators from big states and small statesand blue states and red onesappear to generally agree that:

This is a milestone, and a far cry from the philosophical and policy divides that have typically embroiled all three of these propositions.

Still, the idea of creating sizable tech hubs prompted fierce debate among the senators about the geography of the program, while the regional question could encounter stiffer headwinds in the House. Whats more, nothing currently under consideration comes near to meeting the needed scale of comprehensive action to counter the nations gargantuan regional imbalances. Truly meeting the challenge will require pairing much larger place-based interventions such as innovation hubs with place-conscious adjustments to big universal programs addressing topics such as poverty, infrastructure, workforce development, aid to localities, and market concentration, as notes sociologist Robert Manduca.

Despite these cautions, this weeks Senate vote really could go down as a watershed. Within the bills top-line focus on industrial policy lies an emerging consensus that the nations ruinous regional divides arent working for anyone, and need to be addressed. Now, finally, we can start to do so.

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Senate Republicans and Democrats agree: Time to close regional economic divides - Brookings Institution

Since before he became president, Joe Biden has told crowds, Folks, this is not your fathers Republican Party. As a political reporter, Id been hearing that lament since the late 1990s, from far better sources those Republican fathers sons and daughters.

The radicalization of the Republican Party has been the biggest story of my career. Ive been watching it from the start, from the time I arrived in then-Democratic Texas just out of college in 1978 to my years as a reporter in Washington through four revolutions Ronald Reagans, Newt Gingrichs, the tea partys and Donald Trumps each of which took the party farther right.

From this perspective, it seems clear that the antidemocratic drift of the GOP will continue, regardless of Trumps role. He didnt cause its crackup, he accelerated it. He took ownership of the partys base, and gave license to its racists, conspiracists, zealots and even self-styled paramilitaries, but that base had been calling the shots in the Republican Party for some years, spurred by conservative media. Now, emboldened, its activists will carry on with or without him.

The first elections I covered in 1978, at the midterm of Jimmy Carters presidency, marked the beginning of the Republican Partys reemergence from its Watergate ruins and the shift of its base from the north to the south. In a poll a year earlier, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans had identified as Republicans. Texas was a Democratic bastion. But many Democrats I met there were more conservative than Republicans I knew up north; they often bucked the national party, yet remained yellow dog Democrats in state and local elections so loyal, the saying went, that theyd vote for a yellow dog over a Republican, just like voters elsewhere in the South.

Republicans revived nationally in the late 70s largely because of the governing Democrats misfortunes a global energy crisis, double-digit inflation, a stagnant economy, party infighting.

Evangelicals threw off their longtime aversion to earthly politics and took over local party organizations, becoming culture warriors. By mid-1978, the property tax revolt in California kindled an anti-tax movement nationwide. With both moderate establishment Republicans and insurgent conservatives seeing the possibility of retaking the White House in 1980, the two camps intensified their decades-long war to define the party.

Its clear now that the norms-abiding moderates never had a chance. As right-wing activist Paul Weyrich warned, We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure in the country. That could stand as conservatives mission statement today.

That November, my election-night story for the Abilene Reporter-News included mention of the defeat of a young George W. Bush for a House seat representing Midland and Odessa.

Yet he and other Republicans across the South did better than expected. Some actually won, including third-time candidate Newt Gingrich in suburban Atlanta. Texans elected the first Republican governor since Reconstruction. It all signaled the wave Reagan would ride two years later, carrying other Republicans in his wake. The Democrats who won congressional races across the south, replacing some New Deal liberals who retired, were more conservative and allies-in-waiting for Reagan, many of them future defectors to his party.

By 1984, Id moved to Washington to cover Congress and got to know Gingrich. While he was a backbencher in House Republicans seemingly permanent minority, he led a maverick faction calling itself the Conservative Opportunity Society (Gingrich himself was more opportunist than truly conservative, his lieutenants grumbled to me).

After he read stories Id written about the ethics scrapes of some Democrats in Congress, Gingrich would have an aide in his congressional office contact me with dirt on others, often just allegations culled from the lawmakers local newspapers.

That was just one sign that he was a new breed of Republican, more interested in ruthless partisanship than in passing laws and representing constituents. His goal was nothing short of ending Democrats decades-long lock on the House majority and leading the next Republican revolution.

In 1990, Gingrich by then the second-highest ranking House Republican leader made a prediction that I found unbelievable: Republicans would win a House majority in the 1994 midterm elections. He explained to me that if George H.W. Bush lost reelection in 1992, with a Democrat in the White House the Republicans could benefit from the midterm jinx for a presidents party, and win enough seats to take control.

Gingrich did his part to weaken Bush. Most famously, he led a conservative mutiny against a bipartisan deficit-reduction deal the president had negotiated, assailing him for violating his no new taxes campaign promise.

With Bushs loss to Bill Clinton, Gingrich immediately looked toward 1994. Since the late 1980s, he had mobilized a nationwide network of right-wing talk-radio hosts emerging in local markets. They echoed his talking points daily.

On election day 1994, Gingrich was confident of big gains if not a House majority and certain that conservative media had helped. I think one of the great changes in the last couple of years was the rise of talk radio, which gives you an alternative validating mechanism, separate from the mainstream media, he told me. In fact, he was about to be interviewed by a new local host a young guy named Sean Hannity.

The Republicans triumphed beyond even Gingrichs messianic dreams, winning House and Senate majorities for the first time since 1952. As the new speaker whod taken the party to the promised land, Gingrich led a cult of personality presaging Trumps.

Be nasty, hed tell followers, and he kept conservatives perpetually angry at Democrats and at government generally, with the aid of his right-wing media megaphone.

On the first day of the new Republican-controlled Congress in January 1995, Gingrich had set up Radio Row in a Capitol corridor table after table of talk-show hosts interviewing Republicans for conservative audiences back home. Rush Limbaugh, the king of them all, was declared an honorary House Republican. Collectively, these local celebrities became a power center within the party.

Gingrich would find governing harder and less popular than campaigning, however. He overreached to please the base, shutting down the government in a doomed bid to force deep cuts in domestic programs, and then impeaching Clinton. Within four years, after election losses and scandals, he resigned.

Back in Texas, then-Gov. George W. Bush positioned himself as the un-Gingrich for mainstream voters a compassionate conservative while telling those on the right he was different from his father: that Jesus Christ was his personal savior, hed slash taxes, and his foreign policy would eschew interventionist nation-building. (Hed break that last promise big time in Iraq.)

But even as Bush sought to soften his partys hard lines to win election, the GOPs nationalistic, protectionist and even nativist populism ran deep. As president, Bush had hoped to build a broader party for example, by giving millions of undocumented, longtime residents a path to citizenship. But the growing xenophobia among the partys increasingly white, older and rural base foiled him.

Trump didnt unleash those forces 16 years later. He simply harnessed and amplified them.

By the end of Bushs presidency, conservatives were rebellious against both Bush, for his immigration proposals, Mideast wars and rising debt, and the Republican majority in Congress for its overspending and corruption.

After the near-collapse of the financial system and its bailout by the Bush administration, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first Black American elected president. Almost immediately, the third Republican revolution took shape, this one a headless movement from the bottom up: the tea party.

Republican Party leaders sought to unite with tea party activists against their common enemy Obama. In the midterm elections of Obamas two terms, Republicans regained control of the House in 2010 and then the Senate in 2014.

Yet just as Gingrich found with Clinton, sharing responsibility for governing requires occasional compromise with the Democratic president on must-pass bills. And compromise infuriated the Republican base and conservative media. They dont give a damn about governing, former Rep. Tom Latham, an Iowa Republican, told me in 2015. Latham, who was first elected in the 1994 Gingrich revolution, had just left Congress in frustration after 20 years.

A year later, against a field of establishment Republicans vying for the presidential nomination, Trump quickly rose to the top, speaking a language of aggrievement that resonated with the mostly white, less educated voters living in rural America and long-struggling industrial areas like my Ohio hometown.

They jumped on the Trump train and stayed on even after hed lost reelection and the GOPs control of Congress. As Donald Trump Jr. said of other Republican officials on Jan. 6, just before the attack on the Capitol, This isnt their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trumps Republican Party.

It was a straight line from Gingrichs uncompromising, smash-mouth politics to the tea party and then to Trump.

Should Trump remain exiled at Mar-a-Lago, his MAGA army will soldier on, forcing party officials and 2024 presidential aspirants to fall in line. And if Republicans lose in 2022 or 2024, many seem poised to reject the result, turn to force or countenance those who do Trump or no Trump.

Jackie Calmes is the White House editor for the Los Angeles Times. This article is adapted from her book Dissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court, which will be published June 15.

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Op-Ed: My front row seat to the radicalization of the Republican Party - Los Angeles Times

Iowa Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson appeared on the House floor Monday to press for legislation that would bar Vice President Harris from taxpayer-funded international travel until she visits the southern border first.

Harris, whom President Biden deputized to lead efforts in Central America to eradicate the "root causes" of the massive waves of illegal immigrants heading from there to the U.S. border, has faced strong Republican criticism for not bothering to experience firsthand the crisis she's playing a role in ending.

"This crisis is worsening by the day. Yet, the vice president has refused to go to the border herself and talk to the brave law enforcement officers, the men and women who are fighting this on the frontlines. This out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach is a disgrace," Hinson said on the House floor.

"Shes been to yarn shops, shes been to bakeries, and she just flew right over the crisis at our southern border to meet with foreign countries with the taxpayers checkbook in hand. When asked why she hasnt visited the border, she laughed. She laughed, and this is no laughing matter. The border crisis impacts the safety and security of every Iowan, of every American. Every state is a border state right now."

HARRIS FALSELY CLAIMS WEVE BEEN TO THE BORDER' WHEN PRESSED ON HER LACK OF VISIT

Hinson asked for immediate consideration of her measure, but Democrats rebuffed her. House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., rejected the proposal as unserious and said it was not worth discussing any further.

The White House repeatedly has made the point that Harris was put in charge of addressing the reasons why migrants are leaving their homes, not border security itself.

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But, amid escalating pressure from Republicans, Harris recently said she would visit the border, though she declined to say when.

The vice president flew to Guatemala and Mexico last week to address issues like corruption and economic reform as part of the administration's effort to eliminate the causes of migration. Nevertheless, Harris was repeatedly forced during the trip to focus instead on questions about why she had not visited the border.

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House Republican presses bill to prevent Harris from traveling overseas before visiting the border - Fox News

Shes been an honest broker, Id say that. Thats the greatest compliment around here. Shes kept her word, shes committed to something, Portman said in an interview. He acknowledged "differences of opinion," adding: She would want to spend more I would want to spend less. We have to find a way to get to the middle.

The group holed up for hours on Tuesday night after the Capito talks collapsed. Sinema ordered pizza and forced the group to cast their floor votes together before immediately returning to the basement hideaway where they were chatting to keep talks efficient. They had no time to waste.

Sinemas talks are operating on an accelerated timeline, with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders impatient to make progress in the coming weeks before pursuing a unilateral approach that's been resisted by Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). For Biden, the key question is whether he will bend on asking for changes to GOP tax cuts or the overall scope of the bill after yielding nearly $1 trillion to Capito but still asking for $1 trillion in new spending.

She's a 44-year-old Senate newcomer, but Sinema has spent her first 2 years in office forging close relationships with Republicans that rival Manchin's bipartisan entreaties. And the next few days will test whether that can translate to 60 votes for a big bill that the president will sign.

In a statement for this story, Sinema acknowledged that forging an agreement, with her leadership, between Biden and at least 10 Republicans will be difficult" but would help show everyday Americans that we can work together to modernize and make our infrastructure resilient, and expand economic opportunities.

On Wednesday, deal-seeking Republicans gathered at lunchtime to present their fluid plans for spending several hundred billion dollars above current levels on infrastructure to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican said that hes only in listening mode on Wednesday, a shift from his explicit blessing of Capitos negotiations with Biden.

Sinema cant count on Capitos help at this point. The West Virginia Republican said in an interview shes stopped attending the bipartisan 20-senator meetings she had joined earlier this year and isnt getting involved in Sinema and Portmans cohort.

She did offer some advice: Make sure you actually agree on what the definition of infrastructure is and how you would pay for it. Those tips seem basic enough, but disagreement on those terms brought down Capitos negotiations with Biden before the duo ever got close to a deal.

Im really not participating in the other group I cant negotiate on two tracks, Capito said in an interview. Theyre working their own tracks. I wish them luck. Just gotta make sure what the president tells you is what matches the reality of what they really want.

Sinema has had two telephone conversations on infrastructure with Biden: one Tuesday in the wake of the collapse of the Capito-Biden talks and an in-person meeting in May centered on the issue. Shes also spoken to top White House aides including legislative director Louisa Terrell, Biden counselor Steve Ricchetti and chief of staff Ron Klain recently about the issue. But she purposely didn't upstage Capito, a close friend and ally, by keeping the talks with Portman low-key and on the back burner.

The Sinema-Portman group is also working with a bipartisan House group called the Problem Solvers Caucus, made up of 58 members divided evenly on party lines who helped the bipartisan Senate group resuscitate Covid relief talks at the end of former President Donald Trump's administration. Since then, they've convened every other week at Manchins bipartisan lunch meeting.

When the Problem Solvers Caucus released its version of an infrastructure bill on Wednesday, some of its members privately said it had buy-in from the bipartisan group of deal-seeking senators. As centrists in an increasingly partisan body, many Problem Solvers members already had close ties to Sinema, who previously served in the House.

Sinema also enjoys a better relationship with McConnell than most Democrats, who are deeply skeptical of him and whether he would allow 10 or more of his members to do anything that could boost Biden. McConnell on Wednesday defended Capito and chastised Biden pointedly, claiming he is unwilling to let go of some of the most radical promises he made to the left wing of his party.

McConnell wants Biden to fail, said Sen.Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). There arent even 10 Republicans who are even willing to talk to us about compromise. And if we get 10 Republicans you probably lose some Democrats if its too squishy, middle-of-the-road minimalist.

Sen.Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican member of the Sinema-Portman group, said that those trade-offs are a secondary issue. She wants to see more flexibility from the president, who is currently overseas.

The bigger question is, can the White House accept a more reasonable bill that is focused just on infrastructure and broadband and acceptable pay-fors? Collins asked.

Still, the distrust of McConnell has Democrats openly pressing to abandon the bipartisan approach or at least have a party-line back-up plan ready if talks fail. Brown and Schumer are among the Democrats bracing for the deployment of the so-called budget reconciliation process to evade a GOP filibuster and pass a second huge spending bill this year after the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed on party lines in March.

The Democrats' go-it-alone chorus is growing louder by the day, but they will need Sinema and Manchin to join in. Controlling only 50 Senate seats means Biden and his party need total unity if they try and pass a bill without Republicans.

Now that Manchin and Sinema are knee-deep in arbitrating infrastructure talks with Biden and Senate Republicans, the pair will soon have an answer on whether their bipartisan aspirations harmonize with the presidents vision of spending trillions on clean energy, roads and bridges and paid family leave.

Its a good test. Because this is not deep policy. Its not particularly partisan, said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). If we cant make it on this, its a bad sign.

Still, Democrats have made it clear they have essentially zero patience left after the Capito talks with Biden dragged out for about six weeks. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a member of the larger bipartisan group, said he expected it to meet on Thursday again.

His hope was that by the time senators headed to their home states Thursday afternoon, they would know whether a bipartisan agreement would materialize: If we dont get a deal pretty damn quick, we aint gonna have a deal.

Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

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Kyrsten Sinema gets her make-or-break moment with Republicans - POLITICO