House Republicans rush to a closed-door GOP caucus with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 12, 2016.Congress is expected to exit Washington for a months-long recess with no action on gun control, despite mass shootings in recent weeks and uproar from Democrats who have pushed for new legislation.
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“Nobody can come to this floor and credibly claim the House is not putting its money where its mouth is”, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep.
The fear, Mikulski said Tuesday, is that with defense bills in hand, Republicans will pass a stop-gap continuing resolution to fund all domestic spending at last year’s levels.
Meanwhile, bipartisan concurrence on the need for funds to fight Zika devolved into bitter partisan fights over funding for an abortion provider and whether Confederate battle flags may be flown at national cemeteries.
Mr. Obama asked Congress in February for almost $2 billion in emergency funding to fight Zika at home and overseas, saying future taxpayers could foot the bill.
Earnest recently disclosed that Obama discussed Zika funding with congressional leaders late last week. The House passed my plan in May.
In exchange, Democrats would have accepted a modest package of spending cuts to help defray the cost of the measure.
McConnell, however, dismissed the offer, refusing to disavow the House GOP position on denying new money to Planned Parenthood. He said House Republicans would reject such a measure anyway in an apparent reference to the controversy over Planned Parenthood.
“The action is to go back to our communities and have a candid conversation about the challenges we face as a country”, Flores said, adding that “there’s no need for us to try to cram a majority position down at this point”.
“They’ll have to decide: Do they want to continue these partisan games on critical issues like Zika?”. Democratic nominee-to-be Hillary Clinton paid a visit to Senate Democrats amid new polls showing a tightening race against Donald Trump. That caused an uproar among Democrats, though the practical impact of the ban would be limited.
“There is only one option to get anti-Zika funding on the president’s desk before September and this is passing the compromise Zika control and veterans funding legislation that is before us and sending it down to the president for signature”, he said on the Senate floor. “It’s all been a charade”, Reid said.
Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said that wasn’t good enough, because many women rely on Planned Parenthood for birth control in their corner of America. “As senators traded accusations at the hearing, Texas reported a baby was born in Houston’s Harris County with microcephaly, the disturbing birth defect that’s become the hallmark of Zika virus infection…”
With uncertainty about the long-term effects of Zika and a very real threat that Olympics fans will spread the virus wildly across the globe, the government should be encouraging woman to use birth control, not making it more hard for them to do so.
Meanwhile, Republicans said that because the administration has been slow to disburse nearly $600 million in already available anti-Zika funds, the failure of Congress to act before recessing until after Labor Day won’t have major effects.
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“Congress can’t even agree that known or suspected terrorists – majority from other countries – should be barred from legally buying guns in this country”, said Sen. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden, left, confers with State Department Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Acting Assistant Secretary Judith Garber, on Ca.
