1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
so he said his daughters wanted the trip....not to mention the advisory against travel to mexico
Sen. Ted Cruz faces storm of controversy for flying to Cancun as Texas grapples with power outages caused by severe weather By Felicia Sonmez, William Wan and Amy B Wang
Sen.
Ted Cruz was met with a wave of fury Thursday on his return to Houston
from Cancun, Mexico, as critics questioned his decision to travel abroad
while millions of Texas residents were without power and safe drinking
water amid freezing temperatures that have left at least 21 people dead
in the southern United States.
Public
outrage has mounted in recent days as officials in Texas have sought to
deflect blame for the state’s lack of preparedness for the storms — and
Cruz, a prominent Republican figure widely seen as a potential 2024
presidential contender, immediately became an object of scorn for Texans
already incensed by state leaders’ response to the crisis.
In
an exchange with reporters outside his home in Houston on Thursday
night, Cruz said he decided to return from Cancun, after flying there
Wednesday, because he “didn’t want all the screaming and yelling about
this trip to distract even one moment from the real issues that I think
Texans care about.”
“It
was obviously a mistake,” Cruz said of his decision to go on the trip.
“In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it. I was trying to be a dad.”
He expressed regret and said he had decided to come back earlier than he originally intended.
“Leaving
when so many Texans were hurting didn’t feel right, and so I changed my
return flight and flew back on the first available flight I could
take,” Cruz said, adding that he took a coronavirus test Thursday morning, tested negative and then got on an afternoon flight.
“From
the moment I sat on the plane, I began really second-guessing that
decision and saying, ‘Look, I know why we’re doing this, but I’ve also
got responsibilities.’ . . . I needed to be here, and that’s why I came
back, and then as it became a bigger and bigger firestorm, it became
all the more compelling that I needed to come back,” Cruz said.
He also cast his actions as something any Texan would do on behalf of their family.
“Well,
what I would say is I was taking care of my family, the same way that
Texans all across the state were taking care of” theirs, Cruz said. “It
certainly was not my intention for that to be understood — as critics
have tried to paint it — as somehow diminishing the hardship that other
Texans have experienced.”
The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates the risk of the
coronavirus in Mexico at Level 4 — the agency’s highest level of warning
— and says on its website: “Travelers should avoid all travel to
Mexico.”
Text messages among a group of Cruz’s neighbors, as first reported by the New York Times,
show Cruz’s wife growing frustrated with the power outage at their home
and inviting others to join them on a possible trip to Cancun.
“Our
house is FREEZING,” Heidi Cruz wrote to the group, noting that their
family “couldn’t stand it anymore” and had to stay elsewhere the night
before. The text messages were provided to The Washington Post by
American Bridge, a Democratic group, and confirmed by a recipient on the
text chain who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the
private conversation.
Heidi
Cruz also texted to the group information for flights departing Houston
on Wednesday and returning from Cancun on Sunday, with a note about the
$309-per-night rate at the Ritz-Carlton Cancun.
Photos
that rapidly circulated on social media Wednesday night showed what
looked to be the senator at an airport and on a plane. In some photos, a
gray mask was visible that appeared to be similar to one Cruz wore at
President Biden’s inauguration.
Houston
Police Chief Art Acevedo said Thursday that a member of Cruz’s staff
had contacted the department to ask for assistance for the senator’s
departure on Wednesday.
As
Cruz returned to Houston on Thursday, he was seen wearing a
Texas-themed mask and wheeling a large black suitcase as he walked
through the airport accompanied by two uniformed police officers.
The
trip, which lasted about 24 hours, triggered calls from Democrats for
Cruz’s resignation as well as a cascade of questions about why the
senator decided to leave Texas while millions of his constituents are
suffering during the storms and at a time when public health authorities
have cautioned against international travel because of the pandemic.
Some
Republicans suggested the trip could become fodder for Cruz’s potential
rivals for the White House, as well as in his 2024 Senate reelection
bid.
“Texas
Democrats are going to go after him aggressively on this,” said
Republican consultant Doug Heye, who previously was communications
director for the Republican National Committee. “And if he runs for
president, certainly other Republicans are going to draw that dichotomy
with Cruz and say, ‘[Look at] what I did for my constituents in a time
of need.’ ”
Heye
noted that Cruz and his team appeared to have been unprepared for the
images of him at the airport to spread online. He said the photos were
reminiscent of the images of President George W. Bush peering through
the window of Air Force One to survey the devastation wrought by
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R)
lounging on a beach that was closed to the public during a 2017
government shutdown.
In Texas, more than 3 million customers were still in the dark Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us,
which tracks outages nationwide. As of Thursday afternoon, Gov. Greg
Abbott (R) said the figure was about 325,000. Millions were advised to
boil water as the frigid temperatures caused pipes to freeze.
In
a statement, Cruz said he and his staff were communicating with state
and local leaders to “get to the bottom of what happened in Texas. We
want our power back, our water on and our homes warm.”
Cruz
was first elected to the Senate in 2012 and narrowly beat former
congressman Beto O’Rourke (D) to win reelection in 2018. He ran
unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 and, after
being one of Donald Trump’s sharpest critics during the primaries, went
on to become one of Trump’s staunchest defenders in Congress after
Trump’s presidential win, helping to spearhead efforts to challenge
Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Cruz is among the featured speakers
at next week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando.
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs
the event, said in a text message, “Of course we are looking forward to
having Ted Cruz at CPAC.”
In
the days since the storms hit, Abbott and some other state Republicans
have put blame on frozen wind turbines — an argument contradicted by
Abbott’s energy department. Former Texas governor Rick Perry (R) has
drawn criticism, as well, for saying that Texans would spend even longer
in the freezing cold to “keep the federal government out of their
business.”
The Texas Democratic Party called on Cruz to resign over the Cancun trip. In
a statement, Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said Cruz “is proving to be an
enemy to our state by abandoning us in our greatest time of need.”
“Cruz
is emblematic of what the Texas Republican Party and its leaders have
become: weak, corrupt, inept, and self-serving politicians who don’t
give a damn about the people they were elected to represent,” he said.
The trip also prompted a political action committee, No Excuses PAC, to launch a five-figure radio ad buy against Cruz. The 30-second ad,
which calls the senator “Cancun Cruz” and denounces him as “an
embarrassment to Texas,” will air on 147 radio stations in Texas,
according to the group’s co-founder, Corbin Trent.
Rep.
Colin Allred (D-Tex.), whose district includes part of Dallas and its
suburbs, also sharply criticized Cruz’s decision to “fly to Mexico for a
vacation while the city that he lives in, Houston, they’re under a
boil-water notice, and so many folks are burning whatever they can to
stay warm.”
“This
is just beyond anything that you would expect — regardless of party —
during a crisis like this,” Allred said in an interview on CNN on
Thursday afternoon. “You expect public officials to use whatever airtime
they have to tell the truth, to give folks information they need to
survive and to help with the recovery.”
While outrage at Cruz was growing online, O’Rourke highlighted his efforts to assist Texans during the crisis.
“We
made over 151,000 calls to senior citizens in Texas tonight,” O’Rourke
tweeted on Wednesday night. “One of our [volunteers] talked to a man
stranded at home w/out power in Killeen, hadn’t eaten in 2 days, got him
a ride to a warming center and a hot meal. Help us reach more people,
join us tomorrow.”
In an interview Monday
with San Antonio-based radio host Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo, Cruz said he
was fortunate not to have lost power at his Houston home at that point.
He urged his fellow Texans to stay home and noted that he had spoken
over the weekend with a meteorologist who said the combination of storms
could cause as many as 100 deaths in the state this week.
“So don’t risk it,” Cruz said. “Keep your family safe, and just stay home and hug your kids.”
A Cruz spokesman said the senator lost power at his home Monday night after that interview.
Cruz has previously criticized Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who in November hosted a wedding and then traveled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, as coronavirus cases surged across Texas.
“Hypocrites. Complete and utter hypocrites,” Cruz said in a December tweet, referring to Adler and other Democrats who had flouted guidelines on travel and large group gatherings amid the pandemic.
Cruz
also traveled to Jamaica during the Senate’s Fourth of July holiday
break last year, flouting public health recommendations to minimize
travel during the coronavirus pandemic, said two people with knowledge
of Cruz’s schedule, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
the senator’s private travel plans. Cruz was visiting a longtime friend
from college, the people said. At the time, the CDC had issued a
recommendation that Americans “avoid all nonessential international
travel,” in an attempt to minimize the risk of contracting the virus.
Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
According to CDC guidelines,
after returning to the United States, Cruz should stay home for seven
days to quarantine and get tested three to five days after traveling.
New
rules put in place by the Biden administration require all passengers
on planes returning to the United States to have a negative coronavirus
test result before boarding their flight.
While
Cruz was being hammered at home over the trip, the reception was
different among tourism authorities in Quintana Roo, the Mexican state
where Cancun is located.
“We appreciate his visit,” said Marisol Vanegas, the state’s secretary of tourism, “and the visit of everyone else, always.”
Kevin
Sieff in Mexico City and Dan Diamond, Mark Berman, John Wagner, Colby
Itkowitz and David Weigel in Washington contributed to this report.
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Trump supporters & MAGA supporters resent being compared to terrorists. They also resent being called racist.
We're not supposed to interpret their support for racist politicians who cozy up to domestic terrorists as support for racism or domestic terrorists, because words hurt, you guys.
She is the same as the idiots who live in open carry States who feel the need to strap on a gun every time they go to IHOP or the grocery store. Not because it is needed, but because it makes them feel big and powerful and they know it can be intimidating to people. The irresponsibility to have firearms unsecured, and probably loaded is a tragedy waiting to happen.
Texas state lawmaker Gary Gates lost power at his Fort Bend County home on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday morning he hopped on his private jet to the magical land of Orlando, Florida.
His ill-timed escape came on the same day Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his family flew to Cancun, just as the extreme winter storm unfolded into a once-in-a-generation crisis in Texas. Millions were left without power or running water as temperatures dipped below freezing, killing at least 30 people.
Gates, a Republican, said he made the decision after his pipes burst, 30 percent of his home flooded and he began to see mold.
“My wife is still recovering from an illness she has been battling for two weeks, and the room of my adult daughter, who is mentally handicapped and still lives with us, flooded,” Gates said.
Gates told local TV station KPRC 2 Houston in an interview that he needed to get to a place where he would have “dependable power, dependable internet and dependable phone service” in order to continue his professional duties.
He couldn’t go stay with his other daughter, he said, who had also lost power. Apparently Florida was the next best solution.
But adding confusion to an already baffling decision, a reporter from the Fort Bend Star tweeted that Gates’ chief of staff told him Gates flew to Orlando for a business meeting.
The lawmaker said he did attend a meeting with a vendor for his property management business while in Florida, but denied that it was pre-planned. He also said the Fort Bend Star’s source was not his actual chief of staff.
“So many of the constituents were in the same predicament and they did not have the chance to take a flight and leave town,” Cynthia Ginyard, chairwoman of the Fort Bend County Democrats, told KPRC 2.
“No, you can’t raise the temperature. No, you can’t bring back the water. But you can be there,” she said.
Constituents were also enraged when they found out about their representative’s flight.
“It really would have been nice to have a state representative helping on the ground, working at a warming center, packing food, etc. rather than immediately (flying) off on a private plane when the going got tough,” Brian Walz a constituent of Gates’ told The Houston Chronicle. “My neighbors didn’t get to do that when her pipe burst.”
“I guess Gates took Senator Cruz’s lead,” the Chronicle reported that one person wrote on Facebook.
Cruz and Gates aren’t the only Republican leaders coming under fire during the winter storm.
Democrats went nuclear on Friday, accusing Republican state leaders of leaving Texas vulnerable to a disaster by years of neglect and corporate fealty.
“Republicans... have walked out on the state of Texas either through their incompetence or literally, like Ted Cruz flying to the beaches of Mexico when everybody here is freezing without power and without water,” Rep. Julián Castro (D-TX), the former mayor of San Antonio, told MSNBC.
Republicans in Texas adopted a market-driven approach to utilities, resulting in a uniquely isolated power grid that is unconnected to other state grids and not beholden to federal regulations. GOP state lawmakers have previously opposed mandatory winterizing of grids.
Conservative governor Greg Abbott also hand-picked appointees to the Public Utility Commission, which regulates the state’s energy grid manager, the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Those appointees promptly ditched a multi-year contract with a non-profit watchdog that independently monitored the commission’s work and helped enforce state protocols, like weatherization guidelines, The Houston Chronicle reported.
Abbott walked back his initial accusation that the crisis was sparked by a breakdown in renewal energy sources but he has continued to blamed ERCOT for the crisis.
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) said Republicans like Abbott were “almost cartoonishly blaming the Green New Deal”—referring to proposed climate legislation that is not yet law.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Texas state lawmaker Gary Gates lost power at his Fort Bend County home on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday morning he hopped on his private jet to the magical land of Orlando, Florida.
His ill-timed escape came on the same day Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his family flew to Cancun, just as the extreme winter storm unfolded into a once-in-a-generation crisis in Texas. Millions were left without power or running water as temperatures dipped below freezing, killing at least 30 people.
Gates, a Republican, said he made the decision after his pipes burst, 30 percent of his home flooded and he began to see mold.
“My wife is still recovering from an illness she has been battling for two weeks, and the room of my adult daughter, who is mentally handicapped and still lives with us, flooded,” Gates said.
Gates told local TV station KPRC 2 Houston in an interview that he needed to get to a place where he would have “dependable power, dependable internet and dependable phone service” in order to continue his professional duties.
He couldn’t go stay with his other daughter, he said, who had also lost power. Apparently Florida was the next best solution.
But adding confusion to an already baffling decision, a reporter from the Fort Bend Star tweeted that Gates’ chief of staff told him Gates flew to Orlando for a business meeting.
The lawmaker said he did attend a meeting with a vendor for his property management business while in Florida, but denied that it was pre-planned. He also said the Fort Bend Star’s source was not his actual chief of staff.
“So many of the constituents were in the same predicament and they did not have the chance to take a flight and leave town,” Cynthia Ginyard, chairwoman of the Fort Bend County Democrats, told KPRC 2.
“No, you can’t raise the temperature. No, you can’t bring back the water. But you can be there,” she said.
Constituents were also enraged when they found out about their representative’s flight.
“It really would have been nice to have a state representative helping on the ground, working at a warming center, packing food, etc. rather than immediately (flying) off on a private plane when the going got tough,” Brian Walz a constituent of Gates’ told The Houston Chronicle. “My neighbors didn’t get to do that when her pipe burst.”
“I guess Gates took Senator Cruz’s lead,” the Chronicle reported that one person wrote on Facebook.
Cruz and Gates aren’t the only Republican leaders coming under fire during the winter storm.
Democrats went nuclear on Friday, accusing Republican state leaders of leaving Texas vulnerable to a disaster by years of neglect and corporate fealty.
“Republicans... have walked out on the state of Texas either through their incompetence or literally, like Ted Cruz flying to the beaches of Mexico when everybody here is freezing without power and without water,” Rep. Julián Castro (D-TX), the former mayor of San Antonio, told MSNBC.
Republicans in Texas adopted a market-driven approach to utilities, resulting in a uniquely isolated power grid that is unconnected to other state grids and not beholden to federal regulations. GOP state lawmakers have previously opposed mandatory winterizing of grids.
Conservative governor Greg Abbott also hand-picked appointees to the Public Utility Commission, which regulates the state’s energy grid manager, the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Those appointees promptly ditched a multi-year contract with a non-profit watchdog that independently monitored the commission’s work and helped enforce state protocols, like weatherization guidelines, The Houston Chronicle reported.
Abbott walked back his initial accusation that the crisis was sparked by a breakdown in renewal energy sources but he has continued to blamed ERCOT for the crisis.
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) said Republicans like Abbott were “almost cartoonishly blaming the Green New Deal”—referring to proposed climate legislation that is not yet law.
What is the point of having a private jet if you can't use it to leave a disaster area to go to a resort while your fellow citizens struggle with freezing temps, and a loss of power and water?
Seeing members of the party call for flags to be at half-staff for Rush Limbaugh is truly sad. Did they make the same demand for Officer Sicknick?
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Kinzinger being primaried out of office by a nut-case is a no-brainer. She'll beat him 2 to 1.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Kinzinger being primaried out of office by a nut-case is a no-brainer. She'll beat him 2 to 1.
He's a republican in a blue state that won his election last year with 65% of the vote. He outperformed Trump by 25%.
I really like Kinzinger, but if the republicans are stupid enough to primary him, that is good news for the dems' chances of retaining the house.
He's in a blue state but while I don't know his district, I assume it's moderate to conservative. I'd still be stunned if this Q whacko doesn't take him down in the primary, since few non-GQP will participate. After that it will be interesting to see what happens in the election. It looks like his district (which of course could change per the 2020 Census) circles Chicagoland from the exurbs to the sticks. That's probably a pretty conservative area.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Kinzinger being primaried out of office by a nut-case is a no-brainer. She'll beat him 2 to 1.
He's a republican in a blue state that won his election last year with 65% of the vote. He outperformed Trump by 25%.
I really like Kinzinger, but if the republicans are stupid enough to primary him, that is good news for the dems' chances of retaining the house.
He's in a blue state but while I don't know his district, I assume it's moderate to conservative. I'd still be stunned if this Q whacko doesn't take him down in the primary, since few non-GQP will participate. After that it will be interesting to see what happens in the election. It looks like his district (which of course could change per the 2020 Census) circles Chicagoland from the exurbs to the sticks. That's probably a pretty conservative area.
All I am saying is that I think the odds of the dems picking up that seat increase with a Trumpier person in there as opposed to more moderate guy like Kinzinger. Trump is toxic to over 60% of Americans.
Kinzinger being primaried out of office by a nut-case is a no-brainer. She'll beat him 2 to 1.
He's a republican in a blue state that won his election last year with 65% of the vote. He outperformed Trump by 25%.
I really like Kinzinger, but if the republicans are stupid enough to primary him, that is good news for the dems' chances of retaining the house.
He's in a blue state but while I don't know his district, I assume it's moderate to conservative. I'd still be stunned if this Q whacko doesn't take him down in the primary, since few non-GQP will participate. After that it will be interesting to see what happens in the election. It looks like his district (which of course could change per the 2020 Census) circles Chicagoland from the exurbs to the sticks. That's probably a pretty conservative area.
All I am saying is that I think the odds of the dems picking up that seat increase with a Trumpier person in there as opposed to more moderate guy like Kinzinger. Trump is toxic to over 60% of Americans.
That may be so. Hopefully, some moderate conservatives will be swayed to the Dem challenger...or at least Kinzinger voters abstaining from the GQPer. I know some districts are probably going to be going for MJT types for a while, but hopefully it provides a meaningful net loss in seats.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Republicans test history in vote against pandemic relief
By STEVE PEOPLES
Today
NEW YORK (AP) — With the nation's financial system on the brink of collapse, all but three Republicans voted against the massive stimulus package designed to protect millions of Americans from financial ruin.
It was early 2009, just weeks after Joe Biden was sworn in as vice president, and the vote marked the beginning of a new era of partisan gridlock in Congress. And for beleaguered Republicans coming off a disastrous election, it was their first step back to political power.
Democrats voted alone to stabilize the economy, and two years later, a Republican Party unified only by its unwavering opposition to Barack Obama's presidency seized the House majority.
Now, just weeks into the Biden presidency, the GOP is gambling that history will repeat itself.
Early Saturday morning, 210 House Republicans joined two Democrats in voting against a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package that would send $1,400 checks to most Americans and hundreds of billions more to help open schools, revive struggling businesses and provide financial support to state and local governments. Senate Republicans are expected to oppose a similar measure in the coming weeks, arguing that the bill is not focused enough on the pandemic. But with near-unanimous Democratic support, the measure could still become law.
It's far too soon to predict the political fallout from the first major legislative fight of the Biden era. But as the nation struggles to recover from the worst health and financial crises in generations, strategists in both parties agree that it's risky for Republicans to assume their 2009 playbook will lead to the same ballot-box success this time around.
“I think that the Republicans’ misread here is that it is the same, or that they can just oppose it and there’s no ramifications,” said John Anzalone, the Biden campaign’s chief pollster. “It’s a different world.”
Veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Republicans now bear the burden of clearly articulating their opposition — a task made more difficult by the distraction of former President Donald Trump's high-profile war against the Republican establishment.
“The definer of the legislation wins this battle,” Luntz said. “This could end up being the most important vote of 2021.”
There are reasons to believe that politics have changed since Republicans last unified against a sweeping stimulus package, not the least of which is Trump's omnipresence in the party.
At the same time, the scale of the economic devastation and disruption wrought by the coronavirus pandemic dwarfs that of the 2008 financial crisis. At its peak, roughly 9 U.S. million jobs were lost in the Great Recession, compared with 22 million jobs lost to the coronavirus. A year after the pandemic began, nearly 10 million U.S. jobs remain lost, more than 20 million children are out of school, half a million Americans are dead, and roughly 100,000 businesses are feared closed forever.
Polling suggests that an overwhelming majority of voters — including a significant number of Republicans — supports the Democrats' pandemic relief plan. And the business community along with state and local leaders in both parties are crying out for help.
On the eve of the House vote, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt joined 31 other Republican mayors in a letter encouraging leaders in both parties to approve the package.
“The major part of the bill that relates to cities is sorely needed,” Holt told The Associated Press, citing pandemic-related cuts to his city's police and fire departments. “I don’t know any blue or red state or blue or red city that doesn’t have a revenue shortfall due to COVID-19’s fallout.”
In another deep-red state, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice also broke with Washington Republicans and said Congress should “go big or go home” on the new stimulus package.
“We have tried to underspend and undersize what was really needed to get over the top of the mountain,” the Republican governor told reporters during a Friday coronavirus briefing. “You got a lot of people across this nation who are really hurting.”
Yet no Republican in Washington voted to support the sweeping $1.9 trillion stimulus package early Saturday.
Moderate Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon were the only two lawmakers to cross party lines, joining 210 Republicans to vote against the legislation that ultimately passed 219-212.
“The swamp is back,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said shortly before the final vote, decrying what he called extraordinary “non-COVID waste” and a “blue state bailout.”
“Most states are not in financial distress,” McCarthy said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, traditionally a Republican ally, declined to support or oppose the Republican position. Neil Bradley, the chamber's executive vice president and chief policy officer, said there is a need for a rescue package that is “targeted, timely and temporary.”
“There’s a lot to like in the plan,” Bradley told The AP. “But there's also a whole lot of elements that fail the test of targeted and timely and temporary.”
The chamber, like congressional Republicans, opposes Democratic efforts to boost the federal minimum wage to $15 hourly by 2025 from its current $7.25 floor. The Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday that the progressive priority could not be included in the Senate version of the bill, although Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is considering a provision that would penalize large companies that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour.
Whether the minimum wage provision is included or not, Senate Republicans are expected to oppose the final package.
While there could be political fallout from the GOP's strategy in next year's midterm elections, Republican officials privately concede they are more concerned about the intense intra-party feud pitting Trump and his loyalists against leading establishment Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the No. 3 House Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
That divide is playing out this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, where Trump himself is expected to attack his party's establishment on Sunday as he returns to the public stage for the first time since leaving the White House.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, another CPAC speaker and a 2024 Republican presidential prospect, said party unity is paramount moving forward.
“I think that Republicans need to recognize that what brings us together right now is the left-wing agenda of the Biden-Harris administration," Cotton told The AP. "The more that we focus on what they’re trying to accomplish in the Congress and through the president's executive actions, the more united we will be, and the more we will move public opinion in our direction.”
Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political powerhouse, opposes the Democratic-backed package as well, but its president, Tim Phillips, says it’s unclear whether the GOP strategy will be enough to unite the deeply fractured Republican Party.
“This feels a lot like 2009 — that united the Republican caucus and the activist base in a way that probably nothing else could have,” Phillips said. “It served them well in 2009. I wonder if that’ll happen this time.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
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By Felicia Sonmez, William Wan and Amy B Wang
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/ted-cruz-cancun-texas-storm/2021/02/18/ff0fd950-71ea-11eb-93be-c10813e358a2_story.html
Sen. Ted Cruz faces storm of controversy for flying to Cancun as Texas grapples with power outages caused by severe weather
Sen. Ted Cruz was met with a wave of fury Thursday on his return to Houston from Cancun, Mexico, as critics questioned his decision to travel abroad while millions of Texas residents were without power and safe drinking water amid freezing temperatures that have left at least 21 people dead in the southern United States.
Public outrage has mounted in recent days as officials in Texas have sought to deflect blame for the state’s lack of preparedness for the storms — and Cruz, a prominent Republican figure widely seen as a potential 2024 presidential contender, immediately became an object of scorn for Texans already incensed by state leaders’ response to the crisis.
In an exchange with reporters outside his home in Houston on Thursday night, Cruz said he decided to return from Cancun, after flying there Wednesday, because he “didn’t want all the screaming and yelling about this trip to distract even one moment from the real issues that I think Texans care about.”
“It was obviously a mistake,” Cruz said of his decision to go on the trip. “In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it. I was trying to be a dad.”
He expressed regret and said he had decided to come back earlier than he originally intended.
“Leaving when so many Texans were hurting didn’t feel right, and so I changed my return flight and flew back on the first available flight I could take,” Cruz said, adding that he took a coronavirus test Thursday morning, tested negative and then got on an afternoon flight.
“From the moment I sat on the plane, I began really second-guessing that decision and saying, ‘Look, I know why we’re doing this, but I’ve also got responsibilities.’ . . . I needed to be here, and that’s why I came back, and then as it became a bigger and bigger firestorm, it became all the more compelling that I needed to come back,” Cruz said.
He also cast his actions as something any Texan would do on behalf of their family.
“Well, what I would say is I was taking care of my family, the same way that Texans all across the state were taking care of” theirs, Cruz said. “It certainly was not my intention for that to be understood — as critics have tried to paint it — as somehow diminishing the hardship that other Texans have experienced.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rates the risk of the coronavirus in Mexico at Level 4 — the agency’s highest level of warning — and says on its website: “Travelers should avoid all travel to Mexico.”
Text messages among a group of Cruz’s neighbors, as first reported by the New York Times, show Cruz’s wife growing frustrated with the power outage at their home and inviting others to join them on a possible trip to Cancun.
“Our house is FREEZING,” Heidi Cruz wrote to the group, noting that their family “couldn’t stand it anymore” and had to stay elsewhere the night before. The text messages were provided to The Washington Post by American Bridge, a Democratic group, and confirmed by a recipient on the text chain who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation.
Heidi Cruz also texted to the group information for flights departing Houston on Wednesday and returning from Cancun on Sunday, with a note about the $309-per-night rate at the Ritz-Carlton Cancun.
Photos that rapidly circulated on social media Wednesday night showed what looked to be the senator at an airport and on a plane. In some photos, a gray mask was visible that appeared to be similar to one Cruz wore at President Biden’s inauguration.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Thursday that a member of Cruz’s staff had contacted the department to ask for assistance for the senator’s departure on Wednesday.
As Cruz returned to Houston on Thursday, he was seen wearing a Texas-themed mask and wheeling a large black suitcase as he walked through the airport accompanied by two uniformed police officers.
The trip, which lasted about 24 hours, triggered calls from Democrats for Cruz’s resignation as well as a cascade of questions about why the senator decided to leave Texas while millions of his constituents are suffering during the storms and at a time when public health authorities have cautioned against international travel because of the pandemic.
Some Republicans suggested the trip could become fodder for Cruz’s potential rivals for the White House, as well as in his 2024 Senate reelection bid.
“Texas Democrats are going to go after him aggressively on this,” said Republican consultant Doug Heye, who previously was communications director for the Republican National Committee. “And if he runs for president, certainly other Republicans are going to draw that dichotomy with Cruz and say, ‘[Look at] what I did for my constituents in a time of need.’ ”
Heye noted that Cruz and his team appeared to have been unprepared for the images of him at the airport to spread online. He said the photos were reminiscent of the images of President George W. Bush peering through the window of Air Force One to survey the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) lounging on a beach that was closed to the public during a 2017 government shutdown.
In Texas, more than 3 million customers were still in the dark Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. As of Thursday afternoon, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the figure was about 325,000. Millions were advised to boil water as the frigid temperatures caused pipes to freeze.
In a statement, Cruz said he and his staff were communicating with state and local leaders to “get to the bottom of what happened in Texas. We want our power back, our water on and our homes warm.”
Texas hospitals are running out of water amid power outages. Some are evacuating patients for safety.
Cruz was first elected to the Senate in 2012 and narrowly beat former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D) to win reelection in 2018. He ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 and, after being one of Donald Trump’s sharpest critics during the primaries, went on to become one of Trump’s staunchest defenders in Congress after Trump’s presidential win, helping to spearhead efforts to challenge Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Cruz is among the featured speakers at next week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando. Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs the event, said in a text message, “Of course we are looking forward to having Ted Cruz at CPAC.”
In the days since the storms hit, Abbott and some other state Republicans have put blame on frozen wind turbines — an argument contradicted by Abbott’s energy department. Former Texas governor Rick Perry (R) has drawn criticism, as well, for saying that Texans would spend even longer in the freezing cold to “keep the federal government out of their business.”
The Texas Democratic Party called on Cruz to resign over the Cancun trip. In a statement, Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said Cruz “is proving to be an enemy to our state by abandoning us in our greatest time of need.”
“Cruz is emblematic of what the Texas Republican Party and its leaders have become: weak, corrupt, inept, and self-serving politicians who don’t give a damn about the people they were elected to represent,” he said.
Sen. Cruz to object to Arizona electors who certified Biden’s win when Congress counts the votes
The trip also prompted a political action committee, No Excuses PAC, to launch a five-figure radio ad buy against Cruz. The 30-second ad, which calls the senator “Cancun Cruz” and denounces him as “an embarrassment to Texas,” will air on 147 radio stations in Texas, according to the group’s co-founder, Corbin Trent.
Rep. Colin Allred (D-Tex.), whose district includes part of Dallas and its suburbs, also sharply criticized Cruz’s decision to “fly to Mexico for a vacation while the city that he lives in, Houston, they’re under a boil-water notice, and so many folks are burning whatever they can to stay warm.”
“This is just beyond anything that you would expect — regardless of party — during a crisis like this,” Allred said in an interview on CNN on Thursday afternoon. “You expect public officials to use whatever airtime they have to tell the truth, to give folks information they need to survive and to help with the recovery.”
While outrage at Cruz was growing online, O’Rourke highlighted his efforts to assist Texans during the crisis.
“We made over 151,000 calls to senior citizens in Texas tonight,” O’Rourke tweeted on Wednesday night. “One of our [volunteers] talked to a man stranded at home w/out power in Killeen, hadn’t eaten in 2 days, got him a ride to a warming center and a hot meal. Help us reach more people, join us tomorrow.”
In an interview Monday with San Antonio-based radio host Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo, Cruz said he was fortunate not to have lost power at his Houston home at that point. He urged his fellow Texans to stay home and noted that he had spoken over the weekend with a meteorologist who said the combination of storms could cause as many as 100 deaths in the state this week.
“So don’t risk it,” Cruz said. “Keep your family safe, and just stay home and hug your kids.”
A Cruz spokesman said the senator lost power at his home Monday night after that interview.
Cruz has previously criticized Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who in November hosted a wedding and then traveled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, as coronavirus cases surged across Texas.
“Hypocrites. Complete and utter hypocrites,” Cruz said in a December tweet, referring to Adler and other Democrats who had flouted guidelines on travel and large group gatherings amid the pandemic.
Cruz also traveled to Jamaica during the Senate’s Fourth of July holiday break last year, flouting public health recommendations to minimize travel during the coronavirus pandemic, said two people with knowledge of Cruz’s schedule, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the senator’s private travel plans. Cruz was visiting a longtime friend from college, the people said. At the time, the CDC had issued a recommendation that Americans “avoid all nonessential international travel,” in an attempt to minimize the risk of contracting the virus. Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
According to CDC guidelines, after returning to the United States, Cruz should stay home for seven days to quarantine and get tested three to five days after traveling.
New rules put in place by the Biden administration require all passengers on planes returning to the United States to have a negative coronavirus test result before boarding their flight.
The Texas grid got crushed because its operators didn’t see the need to prepare for cold weather
While Cruz was being hammered at home over the trip, the reception was different among tourism authorities in Quintana Roo, the Mexican state where Cancun is located.
“We appreciate his visit,” said Marisol Vanegas, the state’s secretary of tourism, “and the visit of everyone else, always.”
Kevin Sieff in Mexico City and Dan Diamond, Mark Berman, John Wagner, Colby Itkowitz and David Weigel in Washington contributed to this report.
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Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
and his apartment smells of rich mahogony.
she has some janky hardy boys paperbacks she found at a garage sale.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
We're not supposed to interpret their support for racist politicians who cozy up to domestic terrorists as support for racism or domestic terrorists, because words hurt, you guys.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocascio-cortez-ted-cruz-texas-storm_n_602ff8bec5b67c32961d5f86
Texas state lawmaker Gary Gates lost power at his Fort Bend County home on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday morning he hopped on his private jet to the magical land of Orlando, Florida.
His ill-timed escape came on the same day Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his family flew to Cancun, just as the extreme winter storm unfolded into a once-in-a-generation crisis in Texas. Millions were left without power or running water as temperatures dipped below freezing, killing at least 30 people.
Gates, a Republican, said he made the decision after his pipes burst, 30 percent of his home flooded and he began to see mold.
“My wife is still recovering from an illness she has been battling for two weeks, and the room of my adult daughter, who is mentally handicapped and still lives with us, flooded,” Gates said.
Ted Cruz Went to Cancun. This Rapper Gave Out Free Water to Houston.
Gates told local TV station KPRC 2 Houston in an interview that he needed to get to a place where he would have “dependable power, dependable internet and dependable phone service” in order to continue his professional duties.
He couldn’t go stay with his other daughter, he said, who had also lost power. Apparently Florida was the next best solution.
But adding confusion to an already baffling decision, a reporter from the Fort Bend Star tweeted that Gates’ chief of staff told him Gates flew to Orlando for a business meeting.
The lawmaker said he did attend a meeting with a vendor for his property management business while in Florida, but denied that it was pre-planned. He also said the Fort Bend Star’s source was not his actual chief of staff.
“So many of the constituents were in the same predicament and they did not have the chance to take a flight and leave town,” Cynthia Ginyard, chairwoman of the Fort Bend County Democrats, told KPRC 2.
“No, you can’t raise the temperature. No, you can’t bring back the water. But you can be there,” she said.
Constituents were also enraged when they found out about their representative’s flight.
“It really would have been nice to have a state representative helping on the ground, working at a warming center, packing food, etc. rather than immediately (flying) off on a private plane when the going got tough,” Brian Walz a constituent of Gates’ told The Houston Chronicle. “My neighbors didn’t get to do that when her pipe burst.”
“I guess Gates took Senator Cruz’s lead,” the Chronicle reported that one person wrote on Facebook.
The lawmaker returned home on Friday.
‘Man-Made Disaster’: Texas Death Toll Keeps Growing From Brutal Cold Snap
Cruz and Gates aren’t the only Republican leaders coming under fire during the winter storm.
Democrats went nuclear on Friday, accusing Republican state leaders of leaving Texas vulnerable to a disaster by years of neglect and corporate fealty.
“Republicans... have walked out on the state of Texas either through their incompetence or literally, like Ted Cruz flying to the beaches of Mexico when everybody here is freezing without power and without water,” Rep. Julián Castro (D-TX), the former mayor of San Antonio, told MSNBC.
Republicans in Texas adopted a market-driven approach to utilities, resulting in a uniquely isolated power grid that is unconnected to other state grids and not beholden to federal regulations. GOP state lawmakers have previously opposed mandatory winterizing of grids.
Conservative governor Greg Abbott also hand-picked appointees to the Public Utility Commission, which regulates the state’s energy grid manager, the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Those appointees promptly ditched a multi-year contract with a non-profit watchdog that independently monitored the commission’s work and helped enforce state protocols, like weatherization guidelines, The Houston Chronicle reported.
Abbott walked back his initial accusation that the crisis was sparked by a breakdown in renewal energy sources but he has continued to blamed ERCOT for the crisis.
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX) said Republicans like Abbott were “almost cartoonishly blaming the Green New Deal”—referring to proposed climate legislation that is not yet law.
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2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
She has announced that she will be running in the primary against US Rep Adam Kinzinger in Illinois. She is a pro Trump sycophant who is going to save the people of the United States from socialists and their allies, the weak willed Republicans who didn't back the former President during the corrupt election and highly illegal impeachment. Illinois might soon have our very own Lauren Boebert. So proud.
Kinzinger being primaried out of office by a nut-case is a no-brainer. She'll beat him 2 to 1.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I really like Kinzinger, but if the republicans are stupid enough to primary him, that is good news for the dems' chances of retaining the house.
He's in a blue state but while I don't know his district, I assume it's moderate to conservative. I'd still be stunned if this Q whacko doesn't take him down in the primary, since few non-GQP will participate. After that it will be interesting to see what happens in the election. It looks like his district (which of course could change per the 2020 Census) circles Chicagoland from the exurbs to the sticks. That's probably a pretty conservative area.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
That may be so. Hopefully, some moderate conservatives will be swayed to the Dem challenger...or at least Kinzinger voters abstaining from the GQPer. I know some districts are probably going to be going for MJT types for a while, but hopefully it provides a meaningful net loss in seats.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
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NEW YORK (AP) — With the nation's financial system on the brink of collapse, all but three Republicans voted against the massive stimulus package designed to protect millions of Americans from financial ruin.
It was early 2009, just weeks after Joe Biden was sworn in as vice president, and the vote marked the beginning of a new era of partisan gridlock in Congress. And for beleaguered Republicans coming off a disastrous election, it was their first step back to political power.
Democrats voted alone to stabilize the economy, and two years later, a Republican Party unified only by its unwavering opposition to Barack Obama's presidency seized the House majority.
Now, just weeks into the Biden presidency, the GOP is gambling that history will repeat itself.
Early Saturday morning, 210 House Republicans joined two Democrats in voting against a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package that would send $1,400 checks to most Americans and hundreds of billions more to help open schools, revive struggling businesses and provide financial support to state and local governments. Senate Republicans are expected to oppose a similar measure in the coming weeks, arguing that the bill is not focused enough on the pandemic. But with near-unanimous Democratic support, the measure could still become law.
It's far too soon to predict the political fallout from the first major legislative fight of the Biden era. But as the nation struggles to recover from the worst health and financial crises in generations, strategists in both parties agree that it's risky for Republicans to assume their 2009 playbook will lead to the same ballot-box success this time around.
“I think that the Republicans’ misread here is that it is the same, or that they can just oppose it and there’s no ramifications,” said John Anzalone, the Biden campaign’s chief pollster. “It’s a different world.”
Veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Republicans now bear the burden of clearly articulating their opposition — a task made more difficult by the distraction of former President Donald Trump's high-profile war against the Republican establishment.
“The definer of the legislation wins this battle,” Luntz said. “This could end up being the most important vote of 2021.”
There are reasons to believe that politics have changed since Republicans last unified against a sweeping stimulus package, not the least of which is Trump's omnipresence in the party.
At the same time, the scale of the economic devastation and disruption wrought by the coronavirus pandemic dwarfs that of the 2008 financial crisis. At its peak, roughly 9 U.S. million jobs were lost in the Great Recession, compared with 22 million jobs lost to the coronavirus. A year after the pandemic began, nearly 10 million U.S. jobs remain lost, more than 20 million children are out of school, half a million Americans are dead, and roughly 100,000 businesses are feared closed forever.
Polling suggests that an overwhelming majority of voters — including a significant number of Republicans — supports the Democrats' pandemic relief plan. And the business community along with state and local leaders in both parties are crying out for help.
On the eve of the House vote, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt joined 31 other Republican mayors in a letter encouraging leaders in both parties to approve the package.
“The major part of the bill that relates to cities is sorely needed,” Holt told The Associated Press, citing pandemic-related cuts to his city's police and fire departments. “I don’t know any blue or red state or blue or red city that doesn’t have a revenue shortfall due to COVID-19’s fallout.”
In another deep-red state, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice also broke with Washington Republicans and said Congress should “go big or go home” on the new stimulus package.
“We have tried to underspend and undersize what was really needed to get over the top of the mountain,” the Republican governor told reporters during a Friday coronavirus briefing. “You got a lot of people across this nation who are really hurting.”
Yet no Republican in Washington voted to support the sweeping $1.9 trillion stimulus package early Saturday.
Moderate Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon were the only two lawmakers to cross party lines, joining 210 Republicans to vote against the legislation that ultimately passed 219-212.
“The swamp is back,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said shortly before the final vote, decrying what he called extraordinary “non-COVID waste” and a “blue state bailout.”
“Most states are not in financial distress,” McCarthy said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, traditionally a Republican ally, declined to support or oppose the Republican position. Neil Bradley, the chamber's executive vice president and chief policy officer, said there is a need for a rescue package that is “targeted, timely and temporary.”
“There’s a lot to like in the plan,” Bradley told The AP. “But there's also a whole lot of elements that fail the test of targeted and timely and temporary.”
The chamber, like congressional Republicans, opposes Democratic efforts to boost the federal minimum wage to $15 hourly by 2025 from its current $7.25 floor. The Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday that the progressive priority could not be included in the Senate version of the bill, although Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is considering a provision that would penalize large companies that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour.
Whether the minimum wage provision is included or not, Senate Republicans are expected to oppose the final package.
While there could be political fallout from the GOP's strategy in next year's midterm elections, Republican officials privately concede they are more concerned about the intense intra-party feud pitting Trump and his loyalists against leading establishment Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the No. 3 House Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
That divide is playing out this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, where Trump himself is expected to attack his party's establishment on Sunday as he returns to the public stage for the first time since leaving the White House.
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, another CPAC speaker and a 2024 Republican presidential prospect, said party unity is paramount moving forward.
“I think that Republicans need to recognize that what brings us together right now is the left-wing agenda of the Biden-Harris administration," Cotton told The AP. "The more that we focus on what they’re trying to accomplish in the Congress and through the president's executive actions, the more united we will be, and the more we will move public opinion in our direction.”
Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political powerhouse, opposes the Democratic-backed package as well, but its president, Tim Phillips, says it’s unclear whether the GOP strategy will be enough to unite the deeply fractured Republican Party.
“This feels a lot like 2009 — that united the Republican caucus and the activist base in a way that probably nothing else could have,” Phillips said. “It served them well in 2009. I wonder if that’ll happen this time.”
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