WASHINGTON, August 14, 2019 — The Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Homeland Security Committee have issued a subpoena to compel testimony from the owner of 8chan, the controversial internet message board site which has played a role in at least three mass shootings this year.

On Wednesday, Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. and Ranking Member Mike Rogers, R-Ala announced that they had subpoenaed Jim Watkins, a Philippines-based American expatriate and entrepreneur.

The committee aims to force Watkins to discuss efforts to combat the violent extremists who’ve used his site to announce their violent attacks, and stated that his testimony would be “critical” to their oversight efforts.

“Today the Committee on Homeland Security issued a subpoena to Jim Watkins, the owner of the website 8chan,” Thompson and Rogers said in a statement.

“In recent years, violent extremist content has proliferated on both large and small social media platforms. At least three acts of deadly white supremacist extremist violence have been linked to 8chan in the last six months. We have questions on what is being done to counter this trend so we can be sure it is being properly addressed.”

The site has existed on the fringes of the internet since its founding in 2013, but has been thrust into the public consciousness by mass shooters in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso after they used it to publish racist manifestos explaining why they’d chosen to target crowds of Muslims and Hispanic-Americans, respectively.

In a video posted to YouTube on Sunday, Watkins said the site has been offline “voluntarily for the last week,” and would remain so until he had spoken with the Homeland Security Committee.

A committee spokesperson told Breakfast Media that committee staff members have been in communication with Watkins though a U.S.-based registered agent, though the spokesperson stressed the committee is not aware of Watkins’ current whereabouts.

“It’s too early to say whether he’ll comply,” the spokesperson said.

WASHINGTON, January 16, 2019 — President Donald Trump’s second consecutive attempt to publicly drive a wedge between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team and rank-and-file Democrats was as ineffective as the first.

Although seven Democratic members of the House’s moderately-minded Problem Solver’s Caucus joined their Republican colleagues in a White House Situation Room meeting with the president, they made clear that their presence would in no way indicate a willingness to allow Donald Trump to dictate terms on border security funding while the longest-ever partial government shutdown in American history continues.

In a statement, the seven House Democrats — New York Reps. Anthony Brindisi, Thomas Suozzi and Max Rose, Freshman Reps. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., second-term Rep. Vincente Gonzales, D-Texas and caucus co-chair Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J. made clear that ending the nearly-month-long government shutdown is a necessary precondition for a successful negotiation on border security.

“Over the last weeks, we have been listening to our constituents and speaking with our fellow Members of Congress — in both parties and in both chambers. There is strong agreement across the aisle and around the country: We must reopen the government” they said in a statement.

“Our security, safety, and economy have been compromised, and millions of families are suffering.”

The Problem Solver’s Caucus members suggested that there is bipartisan agreement that reopening the government would provide the possibility of both parties coming together to fix some of the country’s toughest problems.

“But that conversation can only begin in earnest once the government is reopened. We accepted the White House’s invitation to meet today to convey that message.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders had this to say about the meeting: “The President and his team had a constructive meeting with bipartisan members of the problem solvers caucus. They listened to one another and now both have a good understanding of what the other wants. We look forward to more conversations like this.”

The message those seven Democrats conveyed to the president also seemed to put an end to the tactic he’s employed in his quest to force Democrats to accept blame for the shutdown, which is almost 26 days old.

For the second time in as many days, moderate-minded members refused to put themselves between Trump and House Democrats. White House officials had been attempting to portray Pelosi and other Democratic leaders as out of touch with the rank-and-file of their caucus.

The White House initially invited a number of House Democratic backbenchers to have lunch with a group of their Republican colleagues and the president on Tuesday

There appeared to be little rhyme or reason to who received invitations apart from some members of the Blue Dog Caucus, a group of moderate Democrats who mostly reside in so-called “red” states.

However, not one of those who were invited took the president up on his invitation.

One member of House Democratic leadership said the White House’s futile pursuit of Democratic allies reveals how badly the president has miscalculated.

“The president is definitely underestimating how unified Democrats are, but more importantly, he’s missing how completely isolated he is in the country right now” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and a leadership liaison to the caucus’ junior members. “Nobody wants to be a pawn in Trump’s bizarre game.”

Raskin told BeltwayBreakfast he has “no idea” why Trump continues to focus on House Democrats when the Senate has yet to take up any of the GOP-authored appropriations bills the House has passed in recent days. Those pieces of legislation, which members of the upper chamber had approved unanimously, were authored as part of a compromise which the president upended after criticism from right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and anti-immigration commentator Ann Coulter.

“No one is going to budge in terms of demanding the reopening of the government. Either the president does not understand the political dynamics of the situation, or this is a comical effort to distract attention from [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate who could reopen the government today” Raskin said.

The second-term Progressive Caucus member said that many of his GOP colleagues are dismayed over the president’s stubbornness, and are despairing of the political consequences yet to come if the shutdown continues.

“They want to see the whole thing go away,” Raskin said, predicting that if Senate Republicans begin to break away from McConnell and vote to reopen the government, enough of their House counterparts would join with Democrats that a veto of any funding bill could be easily overridden.

“The moment that any significant number of Senate Republicans blow the whistle, you’re going to see a cascade of Republicans joining the movement to reopen the government — I don’t think they can sustain the kind of political isolation that is Donald Trump’s calling card.”

WASHINGTON, December 13, 2018 – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Wednesday agreement to limit herself to no more than four more years at the helm of congressional Democrats may assuage objections to her assuming the speakership, at least from the left flank of the party.

Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said Tuesday that Pelosi’s ability to win the vote to become House Speaker in January 3 is all but assured, said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, the caucus co-chairs.

They said, however, that they expect that Pelosi to honor her commitment to ensure that Progressive Caucus members are allocated 40 percent of the seats on congressional committees.

“We are ready to do the work of real, accountable democratic reform,” said Pocan, who has been caucus co-chair since 2017. The other co-chair, Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva, is retiring at the end of this year, and Jayapal is stepping into his spot.

With the large incoming freshman class of Democrats elected in 2018, the ranks of caucus are expected to swell to about 90 in the session that begins on January 3, 2019. The caucus was formed in 1991 by Rep. Bernie Sanders, then an independent congressman from Vermont. Sanders, now a senator, is the caucus’ only member from the upper chamber.

When will there be fresh blood in top Democratic leadership?

While some progressives might hope for fresh leadership, Pocan said that members on “planet earth” acknowledged the reality that three veteran lawmakers will be the principal leaders of the Democratic Caucus: Pelosi, age 78; Maryland’s Steny Hoyer as Majority Leader, age 79; and South Carolina’s James Clyburn as Majority Whip, age 78.

The sit-down with Pocan and Jayapal took place on Tuesday, before Pelosi’s deal with several members of the Democratic Caucus to limit herself to three terms as speaker. The deal also includes the option of a fourth term if the leaders could obtain support from two-thirds of the Democratic caucus. The compromise agreement, announced on Wednesday, would also apply Hoyer and Clyburn and well as Pelosi.

As each had served in those posts from 2007-2011, when Democrats last held the majority in the House. Wednesday’s agreement four-term agreement (including time already served) would signal an anticipated departure from those leadership roles by the end of 2022.

Although it was unclear whether Hoyer had agreed to the proposal, in a statement Pelosi said: “I am comfortable with the proposal, and it is my intention to abide by it whether it passes or not.”

“Over the summer,” she said, “I made it clear that I see myself as a bridge to the next generation of leaders, a recognition of my continuing responsibility to mentor and advance new members into positions of power and responsibility in the House Democratic caucus.”

Pelosi gets a boost from her ‘mansplaining’ brinksmanship with Trump

Pocan and Jayapal lauded Pelosi’s skills at negotiation, which were visible after a highly contention public discussion in the Oval Office between her, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and President Donald Trump. The flare-up centered on Congress’ willingness to fund the border wall proposed by Trump.

The meeting had happened just before the sit-down, and Jayapal said that Pelosi was “damned good” at negotiating.

“She knows how the process works, understands how the [Democratic] caucus works,” said Pocan. “You don’t want to ever be on the other side.”

They said Pelosi’s skills and passion will serve Democrats well on hot-button issues like immigration, as well as areas where there might be greater agreement between Democrats and the White House. Those issues include infrastructure spending and regulating, or jawboning down, the price of prescription drugs.

“She has a deep sense of the immorality of what the president is doing on the wall, and his political scapegoating of immigrants with the caravan,” said Jayapal.

Jayapal is an Indian-American immigrant who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. She had just come from her committee’s hearing with its sweeping cross-examination of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who is also an Indian immigrant.

At the hearing, Jayapal made mention of her own ethnic background, as being born in the same Indian state as Pichai. Pichai did not make any reaction to Jayapal’s comment.

Progressives eager for infrastructure legislation with federal spending

Pocan highlighted what he saw as the Democrats’ three-fold priorities for the upcoming session: Access to health care, infrastructure investment and increasing wages, and countering the culture of corruption from the Trump administration.

He said progressives were particularly enthusiastic about infrastructure investment, and predicted that a $1 trillion infrastructure investment would prevail from the House, as “there is vast support” for that sum.

That’s only half of what the progressive caucus has called for. But even the progressive caucus’ preference for $2 trillion doesn’t match the $4 trillion-$6 trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers has said would be necessary to properly rebuild America’s infrastructure, said Pocan.