Republicans

The New York Times reports: Senior White House officials suspected that a colleague whom they viewed as a political partisan was ferrying documents about Ukraine in recent months to President Trump, effectively creating another back channel to him that could warp American policy, according to congressional testimony and interviews. Colleagues grew alarmed after hearing that Mr. Trump had referred to …

Raw Story reports: On Wednesday, a group of right-wing representatives led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tried to storm into a secure facility for classified information being used as part of the impeachment proceedings, demanding to be informed of the process. They are almost certain to be ejected because they are not members of the committees reviewing the evidence. GOP …

The Hill reports: Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser during the Obama administration, referred to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as a “piece of shit” during a taping of a “Pod Save The World” podcast this week. She made the remark after Tommy Vietor, another former Obama adviser, first used the term to refer to Graham during a discussion …

Knoxville’s CBS News affiliate reports: Commissioner Warren Hurst took the floor on Oct. 21 to speak about the commission’s pending vote on becoming a gun sanctuary city. “It’s time we wake up people, it’s time, it’s passed time,” Hurst said. Hurst also voiced his opinions on other topics. “We got a queer running for president, if that ain’t about as …

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Tuesday called on President Trump to retract a tweet in which he compared the House’s impeachment inquiry to a “lynching,” saying that the term evokes “a terrible time in our nation’s history.” “I think he should retract it, yes,” Collins told reporters when asked if the president should apologize. “‘Lynching’ brings …

The New York Times reports: Nearly three years into President Trump’s aggressive efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act, prices for the most popular type of health insurance plan offered through the health law’s federal marketplace will actually drop next year, and the number of insurers offering plans will go up. Administration officials credited Mr. Trump with the resiliency of …

Mediaite reports: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) defended Donald Trump’s claim that Democrats are “lynching” him with their impeachment efforts and insisted that black people should not be offended by the president’s use of the term. “I think that’s pretty well accurate. This is a sham. This is a joke,” Graham said on Tuesday while discussing the president’s “lynching” tweet with …

The Texas Tribune reports: First-term Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen on Tuesday announced he will not seek reelection to the lower chamber in 2020 — completing a stunning fall for the Angleton Republican who enjoyed near unanimous support in the House just months earlier. Bonnen’s political future was first called into question in late July, when hardline conservative activist Michael …

Politico reports: Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian American businessman accused of funneling foreign money into U.S. elections, attended a string of events with Ron DeSantis in the closing moments of the Republican candidate’s 2018 campaign for governor in Florida. In a photograph taken Nov. 4, two days before the election that propelled DeSantis to victory, Parnas is next to the smiling …

The Associated Press reports: A Republican state senator from North Dakota took to Facebook to post a long-debunked photo that claims to be Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar holding a weapon at an al-Qaida training camp. The photo on the home page of Rep. Oley Larsen, of Minot, has been debunked by several sources since it appeared on social media …

The Hill reports: The GOP leader told colleagues during a PowerPoint presentation that they would not be allowed to speak during the trial and that any motions to dismiss the impeachment articles would be reserved for Trump’s defense team and the House Democratic impeachment managers, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who attended the meeting, told The Wall Street Journal. McConnell later …

Roll Call reports: House Republicans tried to force a vote Monday evening to censure House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff, accusing the California Democrat of purposely misleading the public in his comments on the Intelligence Committee’s interactions with a whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry. The House voted 218-185 on a motion from House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer …

Roll Call reports: This week the House will consider a package of sanctions against Turkey and an election security measure, while the Senate will finally bring some fiscal 2020 appropriations bills to the floor. The Turkey sanctions measure is being brought to the House floor despite last week’s U.S.-Turkey announcement of a 120-hour ceasefire in northern Syria. Speaker Nancy Pelosi …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out a challenge to Republican-drawn electoral districts in Michigan that Democrats said were illegally configured to dilute their voting power, an action taken in the aftermath of major rulings by the justices in June prohibiting federal courts from hearing such claims. The Supreme Court’s action voided an order in April by …

The Atlantic reports: While the president spent a too-online Saturday earlier this month unloading on Twitter—launching #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY into the canon of viral Trump taunts—Romney enjoyed a quiet afternoon picking apples with his grandkids in Utah and refusing to take the bait. When I met him in his office a couple of weeks later, I asked if the Twitter insults bothered …

The Tampa Bay Times reports: The pictures show Ron DeSantis leaning in to hug a heavy-set, middle-aged man amid a sea of onlookers. DeSantis then turns to another man, who wraps his arms around the newly-elected governor at his victory celebration in Orlando. The two men embraced by DeSantis in these previously unpublished pictures? Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, the …

The Floridian reports: Florida Senator Marco Rubio is one of the Republicans elated that the G7 will be held in his own back yard. Rubio, whose senate office is located no more than 50 yards from the entrance of Trump Doral National, told Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis that he thought is was “great” the event was being held in Miami. …

“When America leaves we create a vacuum. When we create a vacuum we create chaos, and that’s what we’re seeing right now. I applaud the president’s efforts to create that ceasefire, but we shouldn’t have had to do it in the first place. We could have simply told Turkey, who is supposedly our ally, not to send their invasion force …

The Kansas City Star reports: Kansas Republican Senate candidate Kris Kobach hired a white nationalist to file the paperwork that created the Kobach for Senate campaign as a limited liability company with the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office in August of this year. Joseph Suber has a long history of making anti-Semitic and racist comments on The UNZ Review, a …

Vox reports: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a longtime opponent of “endless wars,” just blocked a resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria. “I object to this resolution because it does nothing to fix this problem,” Paul said, while pushing his own bill to stop arms sales to Turkey. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had …