Democratic Party (United States)

Liberal congressional Democrats unveiled a proposal Thursday to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court from nine to 13 — a move Republicans have blasted as "court-packing" and which has almost no chance of being voted on after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she "has no plans to bring it to the floor."

"We are not packing the Supreme Court, we are unpacking it," Jerrold Nadler said at a news conference in front of the Supreme Court.

The retail company Amazon has apologised for misrepresentations about the working conditions of its couriers. A statement on Twitter, according to which Amazon employees do not have to pee in drink bottles during their delivery rounds, has turned out to be an "own goal", the company explained in a statement and apologised.

Previously, US Congressman Mark Pocan, a representative of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, had expressed his outrage on Twitter about Amazon couriers being forced to urinate in bottles, among other things. Amazon responded in a supposedly glib manner: "You don't really believe the thing about peeing in bottles, do you? If that were true, no one would work for us," it said in a reply to the tweet.

Rachel Levine was confirmed as assistant secretary of health by the US Senate on Wednesday, making her the first openly transgender to be confirmed as a federal official. The vote was 52-48, with only two Republicans (Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) joining the Democrats.

The US Senate has voted, 50 to 49, to approve the $1.9 trillion relief bill on Saturday, and will now head to the House of Representatives. The Democratic-held House aims to pass the bill on Tuesday and send it to President Joe Biden for his signature before a March 14 deadline to renew unemployment aid programs.

Republicans senators opposed another major spending plan, contending the state of the economy does not warrant it.

Hungary's head of government withdraws his Fidesz MEPs from the EPP group in the EU Parliament.

The Hungarian right-wing nationalist ruling party Fidesz will leave the Christian Democratic EPP group in the European Parliament today, Wednesday. This was announced by Fidesz this morning. The withdrawal had already been announced by Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a letter to EPP Group leader Manfred Weber.

In it, Orban had threatened the parliamentary group, which wants to suspend the Fidesz deputies. If it came to the vote and adoption of new rules of procedure of the group, which makes the suspension or the exclusion of whole groups possible, the Fidesz MEPs would leave the club of the European People's Party of their own accord, Orban had announced.

The United States House of Representatives has passed Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package in a 219 to 212 vote on Saturday. The legislation is now sent to the US Senate and Democrats are trying to finish before federal unemployment assistance is expiring on March 14.

“The numbers speak volumes. 18 million Americans on unemployment. 24 million people are going hungry,” so Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “The time for decisive action is long overdue.”

The US Senate approved a budget resolution on Friday, that sets up the ability to pass President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill without the threat of a filibuster from Republicans. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote.

After a 230-199 vote, the House of Representatives has voted to strip Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, following uproar over her past incendiary comments and apparent support of violence against Democrats.

Greene had promoted baseless QAnon conspiracy theories and endorsed violence against Democrats. Still, before the vote, she said she regretted her views, which included claims that school shootings and 9/11 were staged.

According to a report from Reuters, the voting rights activist and politician Stacey Abrams has been nominated by a Norwegian lawmaker for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. "Abrams' work follows in Dr Martin Luther King Jr.'s footsteps in the fight for equality before the law and for civil rights," said Lars Haltbrekken, a Socialist Party member of Norway's parliament.

Abrams, a Democratic Party politician who played a critical role in helping to register thousands of voters for the 2020 presidential election and Senate runoff election in Georgia, is being nominated for her work to “promote nonviolent change via the ballot box.”

Other nominees include the U.S. Black Lives Matter movement, as well as Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the "Pentagon Papers" about the Vietnam War, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and WikiLeaks, have also been nominated, as have pro-democracy and civil rights campaigners from Belarus to Poland and Hungary.

Only five Republican senators voted with the 50 Democrats to continue the impeachment proceedings against the former American president Donald Trump for "incitement of insurrection" at the US Capitol. The other GOP members considered it unconstitutional, making a conviction unlikely as it would take two-thirds of Senators (67 in total) to convict Trump.

Martin Luther King III shared his endorsement in a video message posted online by Yang, a former Democratic presidential contender and New York City-based businessman.

One of Yang's most prominent policies is the call for a guaranteed income, a policy that King Jr. advocated for in his book from 1967.

Harris plans to leave her post as senator on Monday, two days before she is to be sworn in as the new vice president in Washington. That was announced by staff in her office. She is to be succeeded in office by California Democrat Alex Padilla.

Padilla will be California's first senator with Latino roots. He will take Harris' post for the remaining two years

The US Democrats want to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Trump as early as Monday. The leader of the House of Representatives, Pelosi, had previously called for Trump to be prosecuted.

After the storm on the Capitol, the Democratic Party in the USA wants to set the course for impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump on Monday. This could theoretically remove Trump from power before he hands over the office to his successor Joe Biden on 20 January anyway. Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu said his party would initiate the process at the beginning of the week.

President-elect Joe Biden has announced his nominees for the Department of Justice on Thursday. He has nominated Merrick Garland – the jurist once nominated for the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama whose appointment the Republicans prevented by bending the Constitution – as his pick for attorney general.

Biden also nominated:

• Obama administration homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general
• Former Justice Department civil rights chief Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general
• Kristen Clarke as assistant attorney general for civil rights
• Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as commerce secretary
• Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for Labor Secretary

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, has called in a press conference for Vice President Mike Pence to remove the US President Donald Trump from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. If this does not happen, Pelosi says, the Democrats are prepared to move forward with impeachment.

The Democratic Party of US President-elect Joe Biden has won control of the Senate - and of Congress overall - with two victories in the state of Georgia. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff defeated Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue respectively.

"It is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate," Ossoff said earlier Wednesday.

Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont is attempting a maneuver to force Mitch McConnell (Senate Majority Leader) to allow the bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday to a vote on the senate floor. The bill passed by the house would increase the stimulus check being distributed in the U.S. from $600 to $2,000. This is the target amount that both the Democratic Party and the President, Donald Trump, have both publicly announced support for.

On Thursday House Republicans blocked a bill put forward by Democrats that would have resulted in $2,000 stimulus checks for individuals as part of a Covid-19 financial aid package. President Trump had demanded to increase the proposed $600 stimulus checks to $2000 earlier this week but the GOP has rejected the move.

"On Monday, I will bring the House back to session where we will hold a recorded vote on our stand-alone bill to increase economic impact payments to $2,000. To vote against this bill is to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny them the relief they need," Pelosi said in a statement.

Lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have agreed on a gigantic new aid package to ease the impact of the Corona pandemic.

The measures include sending checks for $600 each to family members in households hit particularly hard by the crisis, opposition Democratic parliamentary leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer announced. The new package also includes aid for the unemployed of $300 per week each, according to opposition leaders. In the spring, this special aid had been $600 a week. 25 billion dollars are intended according to Pelosi and Schumer for the housing sector. This is intended to prevent financially distressed tenants from having to move out. There is also to be aid of almost a hundred billion dollars for schools and daycare centers.

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg to lead the Department of Transportation. If Buttigieg's nomination makes it through chambers, he would be the first Senate-confirmed LGBTQ Cabinet secretary.