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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the Federal government of the United States. The legislature consists of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Congress has 535 voting members: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress
-- 2017 --
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January/February: Why the GOP Congress Will Stop Trump from Going Too Far
The coming resistance from Republican lawmakers who hate Trump, fear executive overreach—or both.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/januaryfebruary-2017/why-the-gop-congress-will-stop-trump-from-going-too-far/
March 23: Trump's trips are expensive. Can Congress step in?
Trump has spent about half his weekends since the Inauguration at Mar-a-Lago, his residence and exclusive club in Palm Beach, Florida. Those trips include some diplomacy (at times in full view of guests), other meetings and quite a bit of golf. Trump's also made a few stray trips to his other properties, including a night at his new hotel just down the street from the White House and a "mini cabinet meeting" at the Trump National Golf Club outside D.C. Meanwhile, Trump's wife, Melania, is still living at Trump Tower in New York City with their young son, Barron.
... With the White House's "budget blueprint" out, those frequent, expensive trips have raised eyebrows.
https://www.marketplace.org/2017/03/23/business/make-me-smart-kai-and-molly/blog-trumps-trips-are-expensive-can-congress-step
July 29: Trump Threatens Congressional Health Insurance Benefits
Tweet may be prelude to rescinding employer contribution for members
“If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly,” Trump tweeted. “BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!”
https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/trump-threatens-congressional-health-insurance-benefits
August 7: 5 Steps Republicans In Congress Are Taking To Trump-Proof The Government
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/trump-republicans-congress-power
April 13: Under a proposal expected to be introduced in the Senate very soon, President Trump would get a blank check from Congress to go to war virtually anywhere on the planet.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/executive-branch/dont-let-congress-give-trump-blank-check-declare-worldwide-war
August 16: Democrats in Congress Explore Creating an Expert Panel on Trump’s Mental Health
There is also a bill aimed at establishing a “commission on presidential capacity”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/democrats-in-congress-explore-creating-an-expert-panel-on-trump-rsquo-s-mental-health/
October 16: Trump's Executive Actions May Mean More Headaches For Struggling Congres
"Every time you buck some issue over to their plate, you blow the place up," said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in Congress. "And Congress is not a well-oiled machine, so disrupting the agenda and putting more things on their lap — issues which are really wedge issues within the Republican Party ... it's almost mind-boggling to me that a president who doesn't see himself as part of the party in Congress puts them back in that situation."
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/16/557650672/trumps-executive-actions-may-mean-more-headaches-for-struggling-congress
-- 2018 --
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January 21: Senate delays its August recess
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/senate-delays-its-august-recess/
March 23: Congress Ignores Trump's Priorities for Science Funding
Nearly every science agency stands to get more money under a spending bill that avoids proposed cuts from the White House.
Trump first announced his funding priorities for 2018 in March of last year, and it was just as many researchers had feared. His administration’s proposal called for significant boosts in military and border-security spending and historically large cuts for science and health agencies, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health, and climate-research programs across the government.
Congress ignored those priorities as it negotiated funding for fiscal year 2017, declining to get a head start on the president’s cuts. The federal spending bill passed and signed into law by Trump last May didn’t include significant cuts to science, technology, and health agencies, and even provided some substantial increases to some.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/trump-science-budget/556229/
April 1: Will GOP Congress Force Trump To Stop Huffing And Puffing?
The headline above might make you think this is about Donald Trump's level of cardio fitness. It's not. It's about his budget bluster and attempts at fiscal despotism.
In recent weeks, Trump has shown an increasingly willful disregard of the laws and norms that govern almost everything the federal government does on taxing and spending.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stancollender/2018/04/01/will-gop-congress-force-trump-to-stop-huffing-and-puffing/#653696a11508
April 14: Donald Trump Ordered Syria Strike Based on a Secret Legal Justification Even Congress Can’t See
On Friday night, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to conduct a bombing attack against the government of Syria without congressional authorization. How can this be constitutional, given the fact that Article I, Section 8 of America’s founding document declares that “the Congress shall have Power … To declare War”?
The deeply bizarre and alarming answer is that Trump almost certainly does have some purported legal justification provided to him by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — but no one else, including Congress, can read it.
https://theintercept.com/2018/04/14/donald-trump-ordered-syria-strike-based-on-a-secret-legal-justification-even-congress-cant-see/
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April 25: How Congressional Republicans Have Neutered the Trump Agenda
When political scientists assess a president’s legislative influence, they focus on his ability to set the lawmaking agenda and to secure policy outcomes that align with his preferences. During the 115th Congress, the president has failed at both.
Observers of Congress have long recognized that legislative power lies not only in the ability to influence vote outcomes, but also in the ability to decide what issues even make it to a vote.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/trump-agenda-neutered-by-republican-congress/
April 30: : Trump pushes for congressional term limits
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/30/donald-trump-stance-on-congressional-term-limits-560641
May 15: Senate Republicans urge Mitch McConnell to cancel August recess over funding, nominees
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/congress/16-senate-republicans-urge-mitch-mcconnell-to-cancel-august-recess-over-funding-nominees
May 16: McConnell May Cancel August Recess to Keep Democrats From Going Home to Campaign
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/mcconnell-may-cancel-recess-to-keep-dems-off-campaign-trail.html
May 18: Trump missed Congress’s deadline for getting a NAFTA deal done. Now what?
The next Congress — which could have a lot more Democrats —might be calling the shots.
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/18/17368194/trump-nafta-congress-lighthizer-ryan
May 18: Another defeat for Trump in Congress as GOP infighting scuttles farm bill
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-farm-bill-20180518-story.html
May 22: The FBI and Justice Department Will 'Review' Classified Russia Probe Details With Congressional Leaders
The agreement came after President Donald Trump made an extraordinary demand that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI infiltrated his presidential campaign. It’s unclear exactly what the members will be allowed to review or if the Justice Department will be providing any documents to Congress.
http://time.com/5286452/fbi-justice-review-donald-trump-russia-probe/
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May 22: Growing backlash in Congress to easing sanctions against ZTE
Senate panel OKs bill to tighten security reviews of Chinese tech deals
The Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved legislation on Tuesday that would tighten national-security reviews of Chinese technology deals by the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., strengthen export controls and prohibit the Trump administration from lifting stiff penalties imposed on ZTE.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/growing-backlash-in-congress-to-easing-sanctions-against-zte-2018-05-22
May 22: Congress passes ‘right-to-try’ measure, sending hard-fought bill to Trump’s desk
Patients with life-threatening conditions could soon have a new way to ask drug makers for medicines the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t yet approved, after the House on Tuesday voted to approve a version of “right-to-try” legislation.
The House passed the legislation 250-169. Now, the measure awaits a signature from President Trump, who repeatedly and passionately supported the measure and is expected to sign the legislation into law. The Senate had already passed this version of the legislation last August.
https://www.statnews.com/2018/05/22/house-vote-right-to-try/
May 22:
https://www.fox25boston.com/news/politics/congress-delivers-pair-of-bipartisan-bills-to-trump/754798906
May 22: Congress’s prison reform bill, explained
The First Step Act has Trump’s support — but faces some Democratic opposition.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/22/17377324/first-step-act-prison-reform-congress
May 22: Congress rebels against Trump’s Middle East war secrecy
Fed up with increased restrictions on information and less on-the-ground access, some Democrats are seeking more transparency regarding the Donald Trump administration’s military operations throughout the region.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/05/congress-rebels-trump-middle-east-war-secrecy.html
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May 23: If Congress won't protect FBI and Justice from Trump, then we should
America’s greatness does not stem from the fact that every now and then its idiotic leaders send the U.S. military to fight politically ill-conceived and under-prosecuted wars without giving it maximum resources and then expect it to do wonders and hide its resultant predicaments. The greatness stems from America’s commitment to the rule of law and due process.
Nobody is above the law in America, not even a president. The DOJ and the FBI discharge their duties to America in an apolitical and a nonpartisan way. Too bad for Trump, they are no longer the DOJ of John Mitchell and the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover. Today, both these agencies are the jewels of America’s crown of the rule of law. And that’s exactly what bothers Trump so much that he has declared a war on them.
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/columnists/siddique-malik/2018/05/23/if-congress-wont-protect-fbi-and-justice-trump-then-we-should/637026002/
May 23: Congress OKs Trump bid to widen private care at besieged VA
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/congress-track-expanded-private-care-troubled-va-55383806
May 24: Congressional Republicans Frustrated By Trump's 'Abuse' of Trade Powers
Congressional Republicans on Thursday slammed President Donald Trump on account of his latest target for tariffs — automobile imports.
Citing national security, Trump has launched an investigation of automobile imports under the same authority, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, that he used earlier this year to impose wide-ranging steel and aluminum tariffs.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch called the latest move "deeply misguided." In March, congressional Republicans had a similar response to the president's announcement of the sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively, condemning the move, but taking little action to prevent their implementation aside from issuing press releases and urging the president to reconsider.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/haley-byrd/congressional-republicans-frustrated-by-trumps-abuse-of-trade-powers
May 24: Trump's plans for immigration, infrastructure meet swift resistance in Congress
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-state-of-the-union-congress-20180131-story.html
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May 24: Congress is relieved after Trump cancels summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un
Some Republican lawmakers saw the meeting as potentially treacherous or doomed to fail and expressed suspicion about Kim's intentions for coming to the table.
Some Democrats, however, worried about whether Trump had a plan moving forward, and warned him not to go back to the aggressive rhetoric he employed toward North Korea at times last year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/trump-canceling-north-korea-summit-gets-mixed-reactions-from-congress.html
May 24: Trump Identifies His Trade Weapon of Choice, to the Dismay of Congress
The president’s use of a national security law to threaten tariffs, most recently on imported cars, has lawmakers, the auto industry and foreign trade partners worried
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-gop-allies-worry-over-possible-new-u-s-auto-tariffs-1527179893
May 24: DOJ is giving a special partisan briefing on the Trump-Russia investigation to GOP Congress members
There’s also a bipartisan meeting.
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/24/17388684/doj-briefing-gowdy-nunes
May 24: Trump on collision course with Congress on ZTE, the Chinese telecommunications giant sanctioned for doing business with Iran and North Korea.
Trump has publicly signaled his desire to ease the restrictions on ZTE as he seeks China's cooperation on North Korea talks and hammering out a trade deal.
But Trump’s pivot on ZTE has received terrible reviews from Republicans in Congress, who have joined with Democrats in passing measures to ensure the restrictions are kept in place.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/389097-trump-on-collision-course-with-congress-on-zte
May 24: Republicans in Congress slam Trump probe of auto imports
Some of President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the U.S. Congress said on Thursday that his administration’s national security investigation of car and truck imports amid a trade spat with China is being pursued under false pretenses and could hurt U.S. consumers.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-autos-lawmakers/republicans-in-congress-slam-trump-probe-of-auto-imports-idUSKCN1IP35J?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews
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May 24: Trump Lawyer Attended DOJ Meeting On Confidential FBI Informant
Emmet Flood, the White House attorney dealing with the Russia probe, was present at a controversial DOJ meeting about the investigation.
Justice Department officials initially invited only Nunes and committee member Gowdy to review the classified information regarding the FBI informant and the agency’s purported monitoring of Trump campaign officials. Democrats immediately criticized the move, accusing the GOP of politicizing intelligence by initially excluding Democrats from the classified briefing.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/doj-meeting-trump-fbi_us_5b06e0f4e4b07c4ea10613b3
May 25: Trump Announces Plan to Save ZTE After His Administration Basically Killed It
https://gizmodo.com/trump-announces-plan-to-save-zte-after-his-administrati-1826341271
May 25: President Donald Trump said the U.S. would allow Chinese telecommunications-equipment maker ZTE Corp. to remain in business after paying a $1.3 billion fine, changing its management and board and providing “high-level security guarantees.”
Under the deal for ZTE to resume operations, it will also hire American compliance officers to monitor its operations according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Once ZTE complies, the Commerce Department will lift an order under which the company had been cut off from U.S. suppliers including Qualcomm Inc., effectively shutting down its business.
http://fortune.com/2018/05/26/zte-fine-donald-trump-china/
May 26: Although top senators, including Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Marco Rubio, are urging the administration not to bend on ZTE, President Trump is planning to ease penalties on the Chinese telecommunications giant for violating sanctions against Iran and North Korea.
But what Mr. Trump may not realize is that ZTE is also one of the world’s most notorious intellectual property thieves — perhaps even the most notorious of all.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/26/what-president-trump-doesnt-know-about-zte/
May 27: Congress sounds bipartisan alarm as Trump deals on ZTE
Members of both parties say the Chinese telecom giant poses a national security threat.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/congress-sounds-bipartisan-alarm-trump-deals-zte-n877601
September 7: Obama's campaign season debut launches his midterm effort to rally Democrats to the polls and end Republicans' grip on power in Congress. The former president warned Friday that the stakes are high and the consequences of staying on the sidelines “dire.”
Delivering some of his toughest broadsides against the GOP since leaving office – and referring to Trump by name, something he used to avoid – Obama said there are certain "powerful and priveleged" people who want to "keep us angry."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/07/obama-rails-against-trump-republicans-in-fiery-return-to-campaign-trail.html
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September 7: In the battle for control of Congress, President Donald Trump's weapon of choice is fear.
At a rally for Republican Senate nominee Matt Rosendale in Billings, Montana, on Thursday night, the president warned his faithful that Democrats would raise their taxes, take their guns, block his wall, abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, open U.S. borders, end Social Security and cut Medicare.
He's also warned supporters this summer that the outcome in November could spell trouble for freedom of speech and religion and the First Amendment — and that if the GOP loses, violence could follow.
The overwhelming majority of the claims are patently false, but with two months to go — and analysts in both parties convinced that there’s a nonremote chance Republicans could lose at least the House — Trump is in desperation mode.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/fear-loathing-trump-campaign-trail-n907521
November 7: Ilhan Omar: Reaction to first Somali-American elected to Congress
Ms Omar, who fled civil war in Somalia as a child and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya, won Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District in the mid-term elections.
She is also the joint first Muslim woman to be elected to Congress, alongside Rashida Tlaib.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-46131035/ilhan-omar-reaction-to-first-somali-american-elected-to-congress
December 17: At the turn of the 18th century, a newly elected president of the United States—only the second in the nation’s then-brief history—cautioned the American people about “the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.” In particular, John Adams pointed to threats from abroad, warning that if a changed election outcome “can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves.” Speaking before a joint session of Congress, he thus pleaded with the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives to “[preserve] our Constitution from its natural enemies,” including “the profligacy of corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments.”1
The threat of foreign influence over our elections did not wane in the intervening 220 years: Today, the United States has a president whose election was aided by the fraud and intrigue of a foreign nation. Americans who watched how President Donald Trump, in the words of the late Sen. John McCain, “abased himself … abjectly before a tyrant” in Helsinki, cannot be faulted for wondering whether John Adams’s long-ago warning has become a reality.2
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/12/17/464235/following-the-money/
-- 2019 --
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January 13: Three newly empowered Democratic House committee chairmen, alarmed by statements over the weekend by President Trump about his former lawyer’s planned testimony before Congress, cautioned on Sunday that any effort to discourage or influence a witness’s testimony could be construed as a crime.
The warning, a stark and unusual message from some of Congress’s most influential Democrats, underscores the increasing legal and political peril facing Mr. Trump. Democrats are beginning their own investigations of him as the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, appears to move toward a conclusion in his investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and potential obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/us/politics/trump-cohen-testimony.html
February 6: Pelosi warns Trump about making 'threats' against Congress
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked what's the president "afraid of"?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosi-warns-trump-about-making-threats-against-congress-n968436?cid=referral_taboolafeed
February 12: New congressional deal gives little money for Trump’s border wall
It’s unclear if President Trump will support the deal.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/congress-agrees-to-fund-government-with-little-money-for-trumps-wall-2019-02-12
February 12: Trump’s Wall ‘Emergency’ Would Be The First To Overrule Congress On Spending
Trump and his defenders argue that every recent president has declared emergencies — but none has done so because Congress refused to fund a pet project.
While six previous presidents declared dozens of national emergencies, Donald Trump’s threatened one over a border wall would be the first to finance an unpopular construction project that congresses both in his own country and in a neighboring one have refused to pay for.
Trump has been warning for months that he would declare an emergency if Congress failed to appropriate $5.7 billion for a wall along the border with Mexico, and he repeated the threat at a re-election rally in El Paso, Texas, Monday night. “As I was walking up to the stage, they said that progress is being made with this committee,” he said of a bipartisan deal that would provide $1.375 billion for border barriers. “Just so you know, we’re building the wall anyway.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-border-wall-emergency-tantrum_us_5c62fbf3e4b00ba63e4b0a53
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February 13: Another week in Washington comes with another chaotic scramble to prevent a government shutdown.
With a little more than two days to spare before funding lapses for the second time since December, confusion reigned Wednesday. Congress hurried to hash out text for spending legislation, as a few remaining snags held up the release of a final plan.
News outlets say President Donald Trump is expected to sign what lawmakers pass — even as Trump and his administration stress that he wants to see legislation before backing it. On Wednesday, the president said "we'll be looking for landmines" in the form of unwanted proposals once the plan is finished.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/trump-wont-commit-to-signing-border-security-deal-ahead-of-shutdown.html
