The First Week of the 115th Congress
NJ Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman posted this on Facebook yesterday (all emphasis mine):
The week in review:
- Trump fires all Ambassadors and Special Envoys, ordering them out by inauguration day.
- House brings back the Holman rule allowing them to reduce an individual civil service, SES position, or political appointee's salary to $1, effectively firing them by amendment to any piece of legislation. We now know why they wanted names and positions of people in [the departments of] Energy and State.
- Senate schedules 6 simultaneous hearings on cabinet nominees and triple-books those hearings with Trump's first press conference in months and an ACA budget vote, effectively preventing any concentrated coverage or protest.
- House GOP expressly forbids the Congressional Budget Office from reporting or tracking ANY costs related to the repeal of the ACA.
- Trump continues to throw the intelligence community under the bus to protect Putin, despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election.
- Trump breaks a central campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall by asking Congress (in other words, us, the taxpayers) to pay for it.
- Trump threatens Toyota over a new plant that was never coming to the US nor will take jobs out of the US.
- House passes the REINS act, giving them veto power over any rules enacted by any federal agency or department—for example, FDA or EPA bans a drug or pesticide, Congress can overrule based on lobbyists, not science. Don't like that endangered species designation? Congress kills it.
We - progressive, liberal, libertarian and conservative - need to all wake up to what is actually happening to our beloved country.
#UnitedWeStand
#UnitedWeStand
COPY AND PASTE this entire post into your own status update instead of sharing. More of your friends will see it.
****
Thank you Rep. Watson Coleman! You were a fighter when you were a New Jersey Assemblywoman and we are so glad you are fighting for us in Washington.
Folks, this is not America. This is not a democracy. My country is quickly devolving into an authoritarian regime, a puppet state with Putin pulling the strings.
But as the saying goes, "What do we do when we're under attack? We stand up. We fight back!"
Get on the phones. Call your elected officials and demand an explanation. Then, get up, get out and fight like hell!
See you in DC on the 21st.