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tim kaine
'Keep Calling': Warnings of 'Head Fake' as Schumer Claims Dem Unity Against GOP Funding Bill
One observer warned that top Democrats are "trying to fool their own supporters" about their position on the Republican Party's government funding legislation.
Mar 13, 2025
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech Wednesday that Republicans don't have enough support from his caucus to advance their partisan six-month government funding legislation, which would inflict large cuts to non-military spending and bolster the Trump administration's assault on federal agencies.
But Schumer's claim of Democratic unity following tense private caucus meetings was soon called into question as some members suggested the minority party could still cut a deal with Republicans to invoke cloture on the legislation—a move that would pave the way for passage of the bill with a simple-majority vote.
"Everybody in the caucus wants an opportunity to vote for a clean 30-day [continuing resolution] that puts us on a pathway to regular, legit appropriations," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), referring to an alternative government funding bill offered by Democratic appropriators ahead of the looming Friday shutdown.
"It's not an unreasonable ask to say, if you want cloture, you'd better give us a vote," Whitehouse added.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) similarly indicated that Democrats could be willing to help Republicans invoke cloture—which requires 60 votes—in exchange for votes on Democratic amendments.
If cloture is invoked, the GOP would no longer need Democratic support to push the bill through the Senate.
"Democrats had nothing to do with this bill," Kaine told reporters following a closed-door caucus meeting on Wednesday. "And we want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two. So that's what we are insisting on to vote for cloture."
"Any Senate Dem who thinks their left flank, or anyone else in their base who is determined to stop Trump, would accept this strategy is deeply deluded."
Such remarks from Democrats led Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo to describe Schumer's floor speech as "a head fake."
"This is the Senate D caucus trying to fool their own supporters," Marshall argued. "Sorry to say that but that's what's happening."
In a blog post, Marshall wrote that "this was a deal between Schumer and [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune to allow a brief performative episode to throw Democratic voters off the scent while the Democratic caucus allowed the bill to pass."
"The deal is this: Democrats agree to give up the 60-vote threshold in exchange for being allowed to offer amendments to the House bill. The 'amendment' or 'amendments' will likely be some version of Sen. [Patty] Murray's 30-day CR. It doesn't even matter what they are. But this is all for show," he explained. "Once you give up the 60-vote threshold, the whole thing is over."
Progressive strategist Robert Cruickshank wrote late Wednesday that "any Senate Dem who thinks their left flank, or anyone else in their base who is determined to stop Trump, would accept this strategy is deeply deluded."
"This isn't even about left or right or center," Cruickshank wrote. "The divide within the Democratic Party is 'fight' versus 'surrender.'"
The new comments from Schumer and members of his caucus came amid a pressure campaign from House Democrats, grassroots organizers, advocacy groups, and the nation's largest union of federal workers urging senators to oppose the Republican funding bill, even if it means risking a government shutdown at the end of the week.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which is engaged in legal fights against the Trump administration's large-scale attack on federal agencies,
wrote to senators on Wednesday that "a widespread government shutdown has been underway since January 20 and will continue to spread whether senators vote yes or no" on the Republican funding package.
"If H.R. 1968 becomes law—a measure that ignores the administration's brazen refusal to carry out duly enacted laws of Congress and further erodes Congress' power of the purse—AFGE knows that DOGE will dramatically expand its terminations of federal workers and double down on its campaign to make federal agencies fail because there will be nothing left to stop the administration for the balance of fiscal year 2025, if ever," the union wrote.
At least one Senate Democrat who was seen earlier Wednesday as a possible vote for the GOP, Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, vowed later in the day to oppose both cloture and the Republican bill itself, a sign that public outrage could be having an impact.
"Keep calling. Keep up the pressure," Democratic strategist Matt McDermott wrote in response to the Colorado senator's opposition.
Senate Democrats are waking up: Hickenlooper said this morning he was leaning towards backing the CR. But at a town hall tonight he publicly commits to voting No — including on cloture. Keep calling. Keep up the pressure.
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— Matt McDermott ( @mattmfm.bsky.social) March 12, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has been urging Democratic senators to oppose the Republican bill, wrote Wednesday night that "House Democrats have stayed in D.C. to pass a 30-day clean government funding extension."
"We are here to avert a shutdown and give Republicans the time they need to negotiate a bipartisan agreement," Ocasio-Cortez added. "I'm here in D.C. ready to vote on a clean CR, and so is everyone else. Let's do it."
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Trump Moves to Fast-Track 100+ Dirty Fossil Fuel Permits Under 'Fake' Energy Emergency
"Trump's promise to cut Americans' energy bills is a lie," said one campaigner.
Feb 19, 2025
With more than 100 permits for oil pipeline projects and gas-fired power plants likely to be fast-tracked under U.S. President Donald Trump's so-called "energy emergency" declaration, consumer advocates on Wednesday called on lawmakers and state officials to stand up to the president's "bullying" and block his efforts to build pollution-causing fossil fuel projects—and slow clean energy progress.
"Trump's declaration of a sham energy emergency attempts to set into motion the weaponization of national security law to dismantle generations of public health and safety protections," said Tyler Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program. "The ultrawealthy fossil fuel executives who donated huge sums to Trump's campaign see this fraudulent emergency declaration as an opportunity to destroy the remarkable progress of wind and solar development, while maximizing fossil fuel exports and domestic consumption."
Trump signed a day-one executive order claiming that the U.S. faces an "energy emergency" and must "unleash" fossil fuel production—which has already been on the rise in recent years despite clear warnings from scientists that oil, gas, and coal extraction must end in order to avoid catastrophic planetary hearing.
"Trump's national energy emergency is a sham."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited that order in recent days when it created a new "emergency" designation for infrastructure project permits, paving the way for officials to push forward nearly 700 pending applications, including more than 100 for fossil fuel projects.
Clean Water Action toldThe New York Times that one major project it has fought against, Canadian firm Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline, which the company wants to build under the Mackinac Straits, could threaten the Great Lakes and tens of millions of people who rely on them for drinking water.
"If this is pushed through on an emergency permit, the implications of an oil spill if there's an explosion or something during tunnel construction is that over 700 miles of Great Lakes shoreline could be at risk," Sean McBrearty, Michigan policy director for Clean Water Action, told the Times.
"If approved, this project will risk our fresh water and the millions of people who rely on it for drinking, jobs, and tourism in exchange for a foreign oil company's profits," added McBrearty.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)—who earlier this month introduced a resolution challenging Trump's emergency declaration—held a Capitol Hill press conference with environmental leaders.
"We are producing more energy now than at any other point in our history, and the U.S. is the envy of the world when it comes to energy innovation and production," Kaine said at the event. "The passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act have accelerated clean energy projects and created jobs, and we are on an amazing trajectory."
"Trump's sham emergency threatens to screw all of that up," Kaine added. "Why? Because he'd rather benefit Big Oil and suspend environmental protections than lower costs and create jobs for the American people. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to terminate President Trump's emergency."
Heinrich said: "Trump's fake emergency declaration is causing enormous uncertainty. If you're thinking about opening a new factory, you don't know what your tax structure will be in the next 12 months. If you're trying to site and build a new transmission line, the federal agencies you work with just had a ton of their expert staff sacked, making it more difficult to get a permit."
"This is going to kill skilled trades jobs and drive up the cost of your electricity bills by as much at $480 a year by 2030," the senator added. "Trump's war on affordable, American-made energy is killing jobs and raising costs on working families."
Slocum urged senators to back Kaine and Heinrich's resolution.
"Trump's promise to cut Americans' energy bills is a lie, as every action under the fraudulent energy emergency would subject Americans to higher energy burdens," he said on Wednesday. "Having senators support Senate Joint Resolution 10 is a first step, but every governor of states in the Northeast and West Coast targeted by Trump's phony emergency order needs to stand up to his bullying."
The headline of this article has been changed to reflect that President Donald Trump's executive order moved to expedite the permit approval process rather than fast-tracking projects.
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Coalition Urges Senators to Stop 'Illegal, Ineffective' US Airstrikes in Yemen
"Instead of bombing Yemen," one group said, "the U.S. should be securing a cease-fire in Gaza and restoring humanitarian aid for people across the Middle East."
Jul 11, 2024
An anti-war coalition of over 50 groups this week wrote to four U.S. senators who have raised alarm about American airstrikes in Yemen and the Red Sea to call for legislation that would stop "illegal, ineffective, and deadly unauthorized" bombings.
The coalition on Wednesday wrote to Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Todd Young, (R-Ind.), who in January sent a joint letter to President Joe Biden stressing that "there is no current congressional authorization for offensive U.S. military action against the Houthis" and demanding answers about recent strikes against the group.
"We are grateful for your long-standing efforts in support of both ending U.S. participation in the war in Yemen, as well as your defense of Congress' war powers, including your joint letter," the coalition wrote to the senators. "We write today to urge you to take necessary actions to defend the role of Congress in authorizing war and military action, as the framers of our Constitution intended, and to introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution to this end."
The coalition includes Action Corps, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now, Demand Progress, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Just Foreign Policy, National Iranian American Council, Peace Action, RootsAction.org, Veterans for Peace, and dozens of other groups across the ideological spectrum.
"Unfortunately, about six months after the strikes began, there is scant evidence that the strikes have been either strategically smart or successful, as you correctly predicted when you wrote that the unauthorized strikes 'will not deter the Houthi attacks,'" the coalition continued, citing the January letter.
As the groups detailed:
Far from being deterred, the Houthis have actually expanded the range of their attacks, with an attack in late April targeting an Israeli-linked ship sailing 375 miles off the coast of Yemen. More recently, Houthi attacks have shown a 'significant increase in effectiveness,' according to security firm Ambrey, including through the use of drone boats and double-tap strikes. Houthi military officials have announced plans for further escalation of their attacks if no cease-fire is reached in Gaza. All of this was foreseen by experts, who widely predicted that the U.S. strikes would only strengthen the Houthis' narrative, contributing to greater popularity both at home and across the Muslim world, and helping them enlist tens of thousands of new fighters.
"To our knowledge, the administration has not even made a good-faith attempt to engage with the valid constitutional concerns and substantive policy critiques you have raised alongside dozens of House members, experts, and advocates," the coalition noted. "This leads us to believe that the administration has effectively conceded that it does not have valid legal and constitutional authority to engage in these strikes."
"The strikes have nonetheless continued unabated for months, with hundreds of missiles launched in Yemen, including an attack on May 30th that killed at least 16 people and injured about 42 people," the groups added. "This threatens to deny the American people critical congressional debate and oversight regarding this dangerous and strategically dubious military action, and could be cited by the executive branch to attempt to justify similar or even more expansive unauthorized military actions in other contexts in the future."
The coalition is calling on the bipartisan group of senators to "to move swiftly to rein in these unauthorized and unconstitutional strikes by introducing a War Powers Resolution to remove U.S. participation from hostilities in Yemen, until or unless Congress authorizes such action."
Multiple coalition members echoed the letter's demands on social media Thursday. Peace Action declared that "Congress needs to flex its constitutional duty to rein in unauthorized U.S. missile strikes."
Action Corps emphasized that Biden—who is seeking reelection in November against former Republican President Donald Trump—"has no authority to continue dropping bombs on Yemen."
"With each illegal bombing, peace is delayed, and more children are starved to death. It's time for bipartisan action to ensure only Congress can declare war, regardless of which party is in office," the group added. "Instead of bombing Yemen, the U.S. should be securing a cease-fire in Gaza and restoring humanitarian aid for people across the Middle East."
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