MIL USHOR-2b Engine

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (8th District of Illinois)

WASHINGTON — In response to President Donald Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy federal forces against anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) announced that he is offering an amendment to the defense funding bill to block any such deployment unless it is explicitly requested and supported by the governor of the affected state.

“Donald Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to protests over federal enforcement actions is a reckless abuse of power that would only inflame an already volatile situation,” said Congressman Krishnamoorthi. “The National Guard can support local law enforcement in a lawful, limited role, but it must never be used for intimidation or political stunts. Turning the military on Americans shatters the constitutional balance on which our democracy depends.”

“That’s why I am offering an amendment to the defense funding bill to block any funds from being used to invoke the Insurrection Act unless the governor of the affected state explicitly requests and supports such deployment, ensuring we stop Trump’s abuse of power and protect our armed forces from being misused for intimidation, political theater, or unlawful escalation.”

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Earl L Buddy Carter (GA-01)

Headline: Carter-led bill improving air quality standards passes out of House Committee

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA) today celebrated passage of his Clean Air and Economic Advancement Reform (CLEAR) Act, a bill to modernize out-of-date National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), out of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

“For decades, states’ economic growth has been hampered by overly strict, outdated air quality standards,” said Rep. Carter. “My bill, the CLEAR Act, brings much-needed common-sense reform to this system by empowering states to reduce air pollution without getting in the way of prosperity. We are giving states a framework to work with, not burdensome red tape to work through.”

“Congressman Carter’s CLEAR Act takes a commonsense approach to establishing and implementing NAAQS, ensuring states are not bogged down by overly complicated standards that threaten economic prosperity. I am proud to see this bill advanced by the Energy and Commerce Committee and look forward to its consideration on the House floor,” said Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA).

The CLEAR Act will:

• Make attaining clean air standards realistic, while giving states the time needed to comply.

• Exclude natural disasters, wildfires, and actions to prevent wildfires that produce emissions from regulatory penalties.

• Protect the environment while also paving the way for responsible economic development.

Read the full bill text here.

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Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Mike Thompson Representing the 5th District of CALIFORNIA

Read my statement on DOGE employees illegally accessing and sharing Social Security data:

“Members of this administration continue to break the law, and they need to be held accountable. Two DOGE employees accessed and shared Americans’ Social Security data in an effort to undermine our elections and overturn the will of voters. That is not “cost-cutting.” It is an abuse of power and a direct threat to our democracy.

“No unelected group, billionaire-backed or otherwise, has the right to weaponize Americans’ personal data for political gain. These actions are illegal, violate the public trust, and endanger millions of people’s private information.

“Those responsible must be held fully accountable under the law. I urge my Republican colleagues to join Democrats in conducting rigorous oversight to protect Americans’ data and ensure that no one is above the law.”

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded Virginia Tech, based in Blacksburg, Virginia, a $322,000 grant. The funding supports research into human aging and memory. U.S. Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) issued the following statement:

“Thanks to technological and medical innovations, older populations in the United States are expected to increase. Given this projection, it is important that our country prepares for potential medical challenges, pursues scientific developments and addresses policies related to our growing elderly population.

“This grant for $322,000 helps Virginia Tech conduct essential research to better understand the impacts of aging on the human mind and memory.”

BACKGROUND

The HHS office responsible for this grant is the National Institute on Aging. 

As a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Congressman Griffith serves as the Chairman of the Health Subcommittee. He was appointed to the role in the summer of 2025.

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Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Salud Carbajal (CA-24)

Carbajal Calls for DHS Secretary Noem’s Impeachment

Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)

WASHINGTON — This morning, at the weekly House Republican Leadership press conference, Speaker Johnson discussed finishing FY26 appropriations, the beginning of tax season and the transformative benefits of the Working Families Tax Cuts, and his address to the U.K. Parliament.

“Once we pass the final batch this week, Republicans will have finally replaced the last of any Biden-era spending levels with Trump-era spending levels,” Speaker Johnson said. “No more Biden and Pelosi negotiated budgets. We’ve turned that page and we are not turning back.”

 Watch Speaker Johnson’s full remarks here.

On finishing all 12 FY26 Appropriations bills:

For the third consecutive week now, House Republicans are going to advance another set, the final set, of FY26 appropriations bills this week. You’ll see Defense, Homeland, Transportation, and Labor-HHS. These bills are going to fund the Trump agenda and Republican efforts to restore peace through strength, to defend our borders, to deport criminal, illegal aliens, to rebuild America’s infrastructure, and to make America healthy again. All laudable goals and things that we promised, and things we’re delivering on. Now, this is our final batch of appropriations bills for the fiscal year. And there were a lot of people, and I think many in this room, that argued that this could not be done – that a regular appropriations process is a thing of the past. And, you know, it’s been a couple decades since this has happened. Critics said our margins were too slim to bring it back, to rebuild that muscle memory that I committed to when I became Speaker. They said we had too many bills left to pass and too many disagreements left to reconcile. But I’m happy to report that all those prognostications were flat wrong, and we’ve gotten it done. And it’s the most significant sign of progress in these halls in years.

House Republicans are restoring regular order. And it’s important to the people that we represent because the only way to have a good fiscal sanity and responsibility and stewardship over taxpayer dollars is to return to regular order. We’re returning the appropriations process to a committee-led, Member-driven approach, as it should be. We should not have the four corners, the top four leaders in the House and Senate in a back room, making pages and pages of decisions for the country. That’s not the way it was supposed to work. And I’ve been doggedly determined to make sure that didn’t happen. And this time it did not. Together, all 12 individual appropriations bills will provide full year government funding without unrelated policy provisions. It will spend less than another continuing resolution, and it will continue to advance our America First agenda. Once we pass the final batch this week, Republicans will have finally replaced the last of any Biden-era spending levels with Trump-era spending levels. No more Biden and Pelosi negotiated budgets. We’ve turned that page and we are not turning back.

On the benefits of the Working Families Tax Cuts for American families:

Let me give you a couple of numbers really quick. $4,000: that’s the value of the average tax refund for Americans of this year. $100 billion: that’s the estimated total of 2025 tax refunds for families. $10,000: the average increase in annual take home pay for working families. Think of it, $10,000 is the average across the country. 15%: the average tax cut for families earning between $15,000 and $80,000 dollars annually. How did we do that? We reduced federal taxes. We made permanent, the Doubled Standard Deduction. We instituted a $6,000 deduction for seniors, which will affect more than 50 million of them. We included no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. We boosted the Child Tax Credit. We made permanent the Paid Leave Tax Credit. We expanded FSAs. We increased the Adoption Tax Credit. And those are just provisions for families.

We wrote it and geared it for lower- and middle-class families. You know how the Democrats always say, “Oh, the Republicans only favor the billionaires?” It’s a joke. Go look at the facts. Everybody’s going to see that this was written for lower- and middle-class hardworking families in America, and they’re going to benefit from that, and they’re going to know who did it. As our Chair reminded you about five times this morning, Democrats voted against every bit of this. They voted to raise taxes, and they voted against all this great policy. The very people who suffered the most during the Biden years were lower- and middle-class families. And we are going to correct that. And all boats are going to rise.

On the advent of tax season:

Will Rogers, the famous actor and writer from Oklahoma, whose statue stands outside the House Chamber where we all meet to do our interviews with you, he once observed this. He said, “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get any worse every time Congress meets.” For most of our history, his observation held true, which is why everybody kind of laughs at that. But it’s not true anymore. Republicans have simplified the tax code. We have reduced the tax burden on families. We’ve advanced a policy agenda that puts working families first. And the proof is in the pudding, as we say. Next Monday, January 26, tax season officially begins in America. For many people, it’s a dreaded time. It’s a moment that they don’t celebrate. But this year there’s going to be lots of happy surprises. Thanks to our Working Families Tax Cuts,  tens of millions of American families are going to see bigger paychecks and they’re going to see bigger tax refunds.

On Speaker Johnson’s address to the U.K. Parliament: 

We had the profound honor and privilege to be the first American Speaker of the House to address the British Parliament, and it was a good day there. My counterpart, Speaker Lindsay Hoyle there in the House of Commons, invited me back in the fall to come and do that. And the idea was that we would sort of launch, in a historic manner, our America 250 celebration, in the cradle of democracy where it all began. And it was surreal in that regard. And I noted yesterday, the special relationship really does exist between our two nations and that relationship really grew and flourished and was forged in the great wars of the 20th century.

And we have stood together because we have a common history and heritage, I reminded them. And one that gave rise to the greatest, most free, most successful, most powerful, most benevolent civilization that the world has ever known. And that is what Western civilization represents. And I talked with our friends there about the necessity of us standing together to defend the foundations of Western civilization because the West is in peril today. And those foundations are endangered because there are rising powers like China and Russia. And that is one of the things we have to keep in mind as we do all of our work. So that was a little history yesterday.

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Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (7th District of Washington)

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA-12)

Today, U.S. Congressman Rick W. Allen (GA-12) announced the 2026 Congressional Art Competition. Every year, Members of the U.S. House of Representatives sponsor a nationwide high school art competition. This contest is open to all high school students (9th – 12th grade) in Georgia’s 12th District. The winning piece will be displayed for one year in the U.S. Capitol, and its student artist will receive an invitation to travel to Washington, D.C. to attend the national winners’ reception.

“The Congressional Art Competition is a special tradition that provides high school students the opportunity to display their art for the country to see. I look forward to seeing submissions from our young artists in the 12th District, and encourage all interested high school students to participate,” said Congressman Allen.

Submitted artwork must be original in concept, design, and execution and must depict life in the 12th District of Georgia. All artwork must be submitted by March 3rd, 2026 at one of the following three drop-off locations:

• Augusta District Office: 2743 Perimeter Parkway, Bldg. 200, Suite 105, Augusta, GA 30909, (706) 228-1980, (Submissions at this location can be made Monday-Friday, 9 am–5 pm)
• Dublin District Office: 100 S. Church Street, Dublin, GA 31021, (478) 272-4030 (Submissions at this location can be made on Monday, March 2nd, 9 am–5 pm)
• Statesboro District Office: 50 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia 30458, (912) 243-9452, (Submissions at this location can be made Monday-Friday, 9 am–5 pm)

For more information and official rules, please visit Congressman Allen’s website. If you have any additional questions, please contact Christine Rhodes in our Augusta District Office at (706) 228-1980 or Christine.Rhodes@mail.house.gov.

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (8th District of New York)

Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MS NOW’s Morning Joe, where he made clear that, one year into Donald Trump’s term, House Democrats will continue to hold the Trump administration accountable for the corruption and extremism they are unleashing on American communities and their failure to fulfill the promise of lowering the high cost of living.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let’s bring in right now, House Majority—Minority Leader, Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. I’m sorry there was a little time lapse to next year, still Minority Leader for now but before we go to that, I want to say, first of all, Independent voters, a plurality, close to a majority, are now calling for the elimination of ICE. I don’t think a lot of mainstream Democrats on the Hill want to do that, but the polls are breaking that way. So, Minority Leader Jeffries, before we get to funding for DHS and their brutal tactics which, by the way, it sounded even like Donald Trump was suggesting that they made a mistake in the killing of Renee Good. I’m curious about the Epstein Transparency Act that you passed well over a month ago. The Department of Justice was required by law, in an almost unanimous House vote and Senate vote, required to release all the files. They’ve only released about 1% of those files, most of those heavily redacted. What can you do, what can Democrats do, to answer the pleas of even MAGA Republicans—

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: When are they coming?—

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Who want these files released and want the White House to stop hiding them?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, good morning. The Department of Justice has completely and totally failed to comply with the law under that statute that was passed and of course signed by Donald Trump, almost unanimously enacted by both the House and the Senate. The DOJ was required to turn over the Epstein files by December 19th. A month has now passed, more than five million documents have failed to be released and the Department of Justice has not provided any reason that justifies their obstruction. The American people deserve the transparency and accountability connected to the release of the Epstein files. And, in my view, to the extent that Republicans are actually interested in making sure that that transparency occurs, then the Department of Justice needs to either come up to Capitol Hill and explain why they’ve failed to comply with the law or be held in contempt of Congress.

WILLIE GEIST: Leader Jeffries, as you know, Republicans, the Justice Department in particular, are saying there’s so many files, there’s millions of files, it’s going to take us a while. Are you buying that explanation and, if not, what do you suspect?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, from the very beginning of this whole sordid saga, Trump administration officials have claimed that they want to release these files, that they plan to release these files, they’re now compelled to release these files by a law that was passed in the Congress, and yet they continue to obstruct. And so, clearly, I think the American people can reasonably conclude they’re hiding something. Right? Who are they protecting is the question that we need to get a real answer to because the American people simply deserve the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: Leader Jeffries, let’s switch gears now and talk about the upcoming government funding bill, whether the government will perhaps even shut down as that deadline approaches. A thorny issue is funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and in particular ICE, in the wake of that fatal shooting in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago. Talk to us about the divisions that you and your colleagues feel. What happens next?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, ICE is completely and totally out of control. Donald Trump promised with respect to immigration enforcement that the administration was going to target violent felons who are here in the country illegally. That’s something the American people support. The American people do not support the targeting, the arrest, the detention, the brutalization of American citizens, certainly do not find acceptable the killing of Renee Nicole Good and the targeting of law-abiding immigrant families and communities. And so, I think from our standpoint, and we’ll have a discussion in about an hour in our Caucus meeting about the path forward, but clearly there needs to be accountability mechanisms that is put into law so that ICE conducts itself like every other law enforcement agency in the United States of America. That’s not too much to ask. So some of the things that we believe are appropriate in this instance, are demanding be part of any final bill, are a warrant requirement. That’s common sense. ICE should not be able to storm houses of worship, hospitals and schools. That’s common sense. That relates to protocols that exist for every other law enforcement agency in the country. ICE should have a use-of-force standard. None currently exists. Of course, the notion that masked ICE agents are running around brutalizing American citizens, utilizing taxpayer dollars, completely and totally unacceptable. And so these are the types of things that we believe should be put into place to get ICE under control, consistent with the demands of the American people.

MIKE BARNICLE: Leader Jeffries, the Department of Justice is not the same Department of Justice that existed 12 or 14 months ago. Hundreds of prosecutors have left. The FBI has been stripped of a lot of skillful agents who left the Department of Justice. I realize you are in the minority, but what can be done to restore the integrity and the skill level of the Department of Justice?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, that definitely is one of the projects that I think we’re going to need to work on. From our standpoint, we’ve got two pillars that we need to proceed with as we move forward. One, of course, is affordability and making sure that we are driving down the high cost of living, fixing our broken healthcare system. Donald Trump promised that costs would go down on day one. Year one has passed. Costs haven’t gone down. They’ve gone up. But in addition to the affordability agenda that we’ll aggressively push, we need accountability. And Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice, they’ve weaponized this institution against political enemies. Highly qualified individuals have left, and they’re proceeding with impunity. And so from my standpoint, there have to be consequences for some of the outrageous things that have been done. Congress needs to function like a separate and co-equal branch of government as opposed to what my Republican colleagues have done, which is a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s extreme agenda. We’re going to continue to press the case, to elevate, to make the Department of Justice great again, but the reality is that work is not really going to happen in a meaningful fashion until Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives after the November midterm elections.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: All right. House Minority Leader, Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, thank you very much for your time this morning, sir. We appreciate it.

Interview can be watched here.

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Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Haley Stevens (MI-11)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens released the following statement:

“Secretary Noem has refused to answer basic questions to Congress about ICE operations, the killing of an unarmed protester in broad daylight, the alarming rise in deaths at ICE detention facilities—the largest in decades—and her nonstop lies to the American people. Rather than going after criminals and keeping Americans safe, federal immigration officers are terrorizing our communities on her orders. Every day, I hear from Michiganders who are afraid that this violence and chaos will come to our state next.

“Secretary Noem has ignored my repeated calls to open investigations into the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis and the death of Nenko Gantchev, a detainee at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan. Since she has given no indication of resigning for her repeated failures and abuses of power, I am left with no choice but to join my colleagues in calling for her impeachment and prompt removal from office.”

Stevens is cosponsoring H.Res. 996, Articles of Impeachment, introduced recently by Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL). This action builds on Rep. Stevens’ previous efforts to hold ICE accountable, including:

Stevens has also emphasized that Trump’s threat to deploy the military on U.S. soil only heightens the urgency of restoring lawful oversight, the passage of her Stop Trump’s Abuse of Power Act, and Noem’s removal.

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