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The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies met today. Since 1901, this committee composed of the House Majority and Minority Leader, the House Speaker, the House Majority and Minority Leaders, and a chairman chosen by the Senate, has been responsible for designating a theme for the inauguration and setting a schedule of events.(Did you know inaugurations have themes? I didn’t. In case you have even the tiniest bit of curiosity, this year’s theme is “Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union;” Good luck with that sh**.) Not much got accomplished. Congressional Republican leaders rejected a resolution that asserted that...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that an escalated timeline for Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett will allow for a vote before Halloween — as a number of lawmakers said her confirmation is all but assured. “So we’ll start on Oct. 12, and more than half of the Supreme Court justices who have had hearings were done within 16 days or less,” Graham said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “We’ll have a day of introduction. We’ll have two days of questioning, Tuesday and Wednesday, and on the 15th we’ll begin to...

House speaker Nancy Pelosi, following the lead of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, is doing her part to address Congress's priority these days, which is Denouncing the Confederates. She's busy calling for removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol, apparently noticing for the first time after 33 years in the House that the Confederates all around her were a problem. According to Breitbart News: "As I have said before, the halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire...

Top Republican senators dismissed leaked details from former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s upcoming book, saying the allegations were not new.“There’s nothing new here. It does seem to be an effort to sell books,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, told reporters in Washington on Monday.“The basic dynamic of the obligation of the House to take the time they have to put a case together doesn’t change. I don’t think it changes any fundamental information, nor does it change the basic case that the House has to put the case together,” added Sen. Roy...

Senators from both sides of the aisle appeared optimistic Sunday a deal would be reached by party leaders to hold an impeachment trial in the Senate once lawmakers return after the holidays. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer failed to reach a negotiation last week over the rules and procedures for the likely trial, with Democrats demanding the chamber call witnesses. Mr. McConnell, though, is insisting President Trump have the same impeachment process afforded to President Clinton where the Senate agreed to hear from the House managers presenting their argument supporting the articles of impeachment...

guns top the Democrats' immediate to-do list. Party leaders say they aim to mark up three gun control bills this week, and are pressing for the Senate's Republican leadership to allow a vote on a landmark gun background check bill that cleared the House earlier this year. Both parties are acknowledging that any significant action depends directly on Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said early this month that he will only bring a gun bill to the floor if it has the president's backing, but Trump has given no clear preference. "The president needs to step up here and...

Lawmakers are returning to Congress on Monday following a racist series of tweets from President Donald Trump aimed at four Democratic lawmakers, and Republican leaders as well as rank-and-file members are feeling the pressure to weigh in on the President's comments. But many leaders in the party are so far not weighing in publicly -- including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "If he issues a statement on this we'll be sure to forward," said McConnell spokesman David Popp in response to a question from CNN. While many Republican leaders in Congress have thus far not spoken out, some GOP members...

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wouldn’t speak about the subpoena itself, but defended the character of Burr in leading the Intelligence Committee. “I support his leadership and think that he has done a good job,” she said, the Washington Post reported. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), another member of the committee, also defended Burr’s leadership, and questioned whether some of his colleagues understood that their work was different from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that concluded earlier this year. “Mueller is a criminal justice investigation. Ours is an intelligence investigation about the Russia threat and about the way our agencies performed,” Rubio...

These Senate offices include Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is up for re-election in Texas in 2020; Tom Cotton (R-AR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Jim Risch (R-ID). Not one of those senators would publicly stand by Burr on Wednesday evening, when asked where they stand both on the subpoena and on whether Burr should remain chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Not only has the entire Senate Intelligence Committee GOP membership basically abandoned defending Burr publicly, it appears no Republicans anywhere have his back on this. What’s more, while Burr himself...

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes filed a $150 million lawsuit in Virginia state court against The McClatchy Company and others on Monday, alleging that one of the news agency's reporters conspired with a political operative to derail Nunes' oversight work into the Hillary Clinton campaign and Russian election interference. The filing, obtained by Fox News, came a day after Nunes, R-Calif., revealed he would send eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department this week concerning purported surveillance abuses by federal authorities, false statements to Congress and other matters. In March, Nunes filed a similar $250 million lawsuit alleging...

A Missouri county GOP committee disinvited Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to a dinner event next month, citing his recent vote against President Trump’s emergency declaration to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Blunt joined 11 Senate Republicans, and all Democrats, in voting to block the declaration, prompting the Christian County Republican Central Committee to rescind his invitation to the local GOP’s Lincoln/Trump Day Dinner, scheduled for April 6 in Ozark. “I am so disappointed in you now that I can hardly speak,” Wanda Martens, the party committee’s events chairwoman, wrote in an email to Blunt’s office obtained by The...

Senate PASSES resolution to terminate President Trump's emergency declaration at the border, 59-41, sending it to Trump's desk for him to veto (as he has threatened to do). 12 GOP YES VOTES: Alexander Blunt Collins Lee Moran Murkowski Paul Portman Romney Rubio Toomey Wicker

Senate Republicans are planning to advance a proposal that would dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to advance hundreds of Trump nominees by the end of March. Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.), a member of GOP leadership, said the Rules Committee, which he oversees, would take up the proposal. “I’m looking at the first quarter of the year,” Blunt said, asked about a timeline for taking up the change. The timeline, which was first reported by Politico, is the latest sign that Republicans are feeling bullish about changing the rules for President Trump’s nominees after discussing the idea at...

Members of Congress will have to pay out of their own pockets to settle sexual and other harassment claims made against them under compromise policies that lawmakers announced Wednesday. Currently taxpayers cover the cost of settling harassment claims made against elected officials. The new policy, a bipartisan response in the #MeToo era after nearly seven months of negotiations between the House and Senate, could get a Senate vote by the end of the week, said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). Blunt said he had spoken with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Ryan told him that he would bring the...

The poll of 1,555 likely voters in Missouri has a 2.5 percent margin of error... Among female respondents, 47 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 42 percent said it made them more likely. Among male respondents, 50 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 41 percent said it made them more likely.

More than two dozen Senate Republicans are urging President Trump to re-engage in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The 25 GOP lawmakers sent a letter to Trump on Friday saying they support his recent comments that he may consider U.S. participation if the 11-nation Asia-Pacific pact is improved.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Tuesday said there should be an exhaustive investigation into the ties between Russia and the Trump administration. "I think everybody needs that investigation to happen," Blunt told KTRS radio, CNN reported. "And the Senate Intelligence Committee, again that I serve on, has been given the principle responsibility to look into this, and I think we should look into it exhaustively so that at the end of this process, nobody wonders whether there was a stone left unturned, and shouldn't reach conclusions before you have the information that you need to have to make those conclusions."...

Republican U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt is taking Donald Trump to task for berating the parents of a decorated Army captain killed in Iraq. Blunt, of Missouri, advised Trump to "focus on jobs and national security and stop responding to every criticism whether it's from a grieving family or Hillary Clinton."

Conservative critics of President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Library of Congress were blindsided Wednesday when a key Republican engineered her lopsided confirmation by the Senate despite concerns she is, in the words of one opponent, “an unqualified, far-left progressive.” The Senate voted 74-18 to confirm Carla D. Hayden, who leads Baltimore’s public library system, as the 14th librarian of Congress. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., rushed Hayden’s nomination to the floor even as Blunt’s office declined to answer The Daily Signal’s inquiries Wednesday morning about the status of the nomination. U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote (go to link) All...

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday stopped short of calling for Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald to resign over his comments comparing wait times at VA clinics to wait times at amusement parks. A reporter told Ryan that Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is calling on McDonald to resign. "Do you think it goes to that level, that he should resign?" the reporter asked Ryan. "I don't know if he should resign. He should clarify his comments," Ryan said. "He should show some empathy for our veterans that he's supposed to serve. This really is just beyond the pale,...