News

Madeleine Albright is hero to our daughters.

Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Lines, in an email, ordered the state’s elected Republican officials to “stand with” President Donald Trump. And that it is “non-negotiable.”

As the only Arizona Republican in the U.S. Senate, Martha McSally appears to be his target. Plus, the senator is up for reelection in 2020.

As did other state party chairmen, Chairman Lines took issue with newly elected Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s recent, Trump-critical, essay. Romney, who had stumped for McSally, wrote that Trump had not “risen to the mantle of the office.”

He continued, “I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault. But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions” in an apparent echo of the late Senator John McCain.

Lines wrote that Romney’s essay was “very critical of our President, and Republicans rightly have criticized both his words, and the fact that he used the pages of the Washington Post, one of the most anti-Trump newspapers in the country, to deliver them.”

He continued, “One of the things I’ve always loved about our party is that we are a big tent. We have room for everyone. That’s why, as your Chairman, I’ve done my best to welcome as many different viewpoints and coalitions as possible into our party… However, while we are accepting of different viewpoints, it is essential that we stay true to our conservative values. And it is non-negotiable that we stand with our President.”

Even though I am not a Republican, I can speak to values common to all Americans. And one of these is to question authority. We must question all of our elected representatives, and expect them to question those above them in the political foodchain. Only by doing so can we make our politicians put their constituents above themselves.

Army veteran and Florida Rep. Brian Mast tweeted a photo Thursday marking the swearing-in ceremony of fellow wounded veterans and Republican congressmen Jim Baird and Dan Crenshaw.

“5 eyes. 5 arms. 4 legs. All American,” Mast captioned the image in a post on Twitter. “Welcome to Congress, @ElectJimBaird and @DanCrenshawTX.”

Veterans ran in larger than usual numbers in 2018, both Democrats and Republicans, though they had a harder time getting past Democratic primaries than Republican. Regardless of party, we salute these American warriors.

Mark Ruffalo spent time in Washington, DC with some of our Progressive congresspeople, including New Mexico’s own Debra Haaland!

BREAKING: Donald Trump mulls declaring a state of emergency over U.S.-Mexico border wall funding.

At a press conference, the president said he will consider declaring a national emergency to help get funds to build the wall “for the security of the country.”

According to ABC News, options open to the president could include transferring funds from the Department of Defense and elsewhere, thus circumventing Congress.

BREAKING: After what Donald Trump initially characterized as a “very productive” meeting with top Democrats at the White House, he was forced to walk back that description.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer met with the president on Friday.

Afterwards, Senator Schumer’s description of the encounter was at odds with the president’s as he related to reporters: “We told the president we needed the government open. He resisted…. In fact, he said he’d keep the government closed for a very long period of time. Months or even years.”

At the White House, the president said, “We’re all on the same path in terms of wanting to get government open.” Pushed by reporters, he responded, “I did say that, absolutely I said that…. I don’t think it will, but I am prepared.”

He stood by his demand for congressional funding of a US-Mexico border wall. Without that funding, he said, he would not sign any budget bill. The standoff continues, as approximately 800,000 federal workers continue without pay – many of them working – since 22 December. Democrats remain adamantly opposed to funding a wall.