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Speaker Johnson faces year of tight votes and acrimony: ‘A lot of expectations’

Speaker Johnson faces year of tight votes and acrimony: ‘A lot of expectations’

While the high-stakes fight to lead the House of Representatives is over, Speaker Mike Johnson’s politically perilous year is just beginning. Winning the speaker’s gavel was no easy feat considering Johnson, R-La., had no Democratic support and could only lose one fellow Republican, thanks to the House GOP’s razor-thin majority. All House Republicans except for Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voted for Johnson on Friday afternoon. Two GOP lawmakers who had initially voted for someone other than Johnson, Reps. Keith Self, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., were eventually persuaded to switch their votes after speaking with Johnson and President-elect Trump. Johnson will have to navigate a similarly slim margin over the next few months as he helps carry out what President-elect Donald Trump promised would be a very active first 100 days of his new administration. REPUBLICANS GIVE DETAILS FROM CLOSED-DOOR MEETINGS WITH DOGE’S MUSK, RAMASWAMY “There’s a lot of expectations and potential pitfalls,” Marc Short, who served as director of legislative affairs during the first Trump administration, told Fox News Digital in an interview late last month.  Just the first half of 2025 alone is expected to see at least three separate fiscal fights. Johnson, meanwhile, is set to lose two House Republicans – Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Mike Waltz of Florida. Both members are joining the Trump administration at the end of this month. It will reduce his House GOP majority to just 217 seats, compared to 215 for Democrats, which means Republicans will need to vote in lock-step to pass any bills on a party-line vote.  Special elections to replace Waltz and retired Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., are set for April. An election to replace Stefanik has not yet been set. Meanwhile, Republicans are gunning to pass two massive conservative policy and spending overhauls via a process called “reconciliation,” which lowers the threshold for passage in the Senate from 60 votes to a simple majority for certain budgetary issues. Both Republicans and Democrats have tried to use reconciliation to pass significant fiscal policy changes that the other side normally opposes, meaning it takes extraordinary levels of intra-party cooperation in both the House and Senate. “There’s huge expectations on budget reconciliation, and that’s really hard, even when you’ve got wide margins. To think you’re going to do it twice in a year with those margins, I think is an enormously high expectation that seems to be unreasonable,” Short told Fox News Digital. “And add onto that another funding bill in three months, plus a debt ceiling fight.” Along with reconciliation bills – which are unlikely to get much, if any, Democratic support – Republicans will also have to grapple with the government funding deadline they just punted to March 14. DANIEL PENNY TO BE TAPPED FOR CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL BY HOUSE GOP LAWMAKER House and Senate lawmakers passed a short-term extension of fiscal year (FY) 2024’s government funding levels in December to give negotiators more time to hash out the rest of FY 2025. Congress will risk plunging the government into a partial shutdown if the House and Senate does not pass another funding extension or set new priorities for the remainder of FY 2025 by then. The next government funding deadline will come at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. That’s not all Johnson will have to focus on during those months, however. A bipartisan agreement struck in 2023 suspended the U.S. debt limit through January 2025 – after which the Treasury Department will be forced to take “extraordinary measures” to avoid a national credit default. The debt limit refers to how much debt the U.S. government can accrue while making expenditures it has already committed to. As of Christmas Eve, the national debt — which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors — fell to $36,161,621,015,445.57, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department.  Raising the debt limit is also traditionally a fraught political battle, with both Republicans and Democrats seeking any possible leverage to attach their own policy goals to the negotiations. A recent model produced by the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) projects the Treasury’s “extraordinary measures” will carry the U.S. through mid-June or earlier, giving Congress potentially six months to act.

Medical victims: Indian visa curbs amid Bangladesh tensions hurt patients

Medical victims: Indian visa curbs amid Bangladesh tensions hurt patients

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Khadiza Khatun’s life took a devastating turn in September when doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital informed her that her 37-year-old husband, Mohammad Nuri Alam, urgently needed a liver transplant – a procedure unavailable in Bangladesh. After careful research, they decided to go to India’s Asian Institute of Gastroenterology in Hyderabad, a trusted destination for many Bangladeshi patients. But three months later, they are yet to secure visas for the trip. Amid escalating tensions between India and Bangladesh since the August ouster of Sheikh Hasina, an ally of New Delhi’s, from Dhaka, Indian authorities have significantly scaled back visa operations in Bangladesh. The result: Khadiza and her husband have already missed two hospital appointments, on November 20 and December 20, and are unsure about whether they’ll be able to get to India in time for January 10, the next date the medical facility in Hyderabad has given them. “We’ve tried everything since October – approaching travel agencies, seeking help from friends in government,” she told Al Jazeera. “India remains our only hope.” Advertisement Faced with unaffordable treatment options in Thailand and other countries, Khadiza is left watching her husband’s health deteriorate while relying on daily symptomatic treatment in Dhaka hospitals – hoping that the new year will bring her the visas her husband and she desperately need. “I feel helpless, running between hospitals without a solution,” said the mother of two. Khadiza’s struggle reflects a larger crisis affecting thousands of Bangladeshi patients, who rely on India’s affordable healthcare, because of the visa restrictions introduced by the Indian authorities. The Indian visa centre, on its website, says that it is only “offering limited appointment slots for Bangladesh nationals requiring urgent medical and student visas” and is “currently processing only a limited number of visas of emergency and humanitarian nature”. According to an Indian visa centre official in Bangladesh, daily online visa slots across five Indian visa centres in Bangladesh, including Dhaka, have “plummeted to around 500” from over 7,000 since the onset of the protests in July that led to Hasina’s removal from office. For many Bangladeshis, like Khadiza, the real likelihood of getting visas feels even slimmer. The usually bustling premises of the Indian visa centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh, had very few applicants on January 1, 2025 [Moudud Ahmmed Sujan/Al Jazeera] The slide in ties India-Bangladesh relations have deteriorated since Hasina fled the country for New Delhi on August 5 after a weeks-long student-led protest against her increasingly authoritarian rule. Advertisement India has since sheltered Hasina, straining ties – the interim Bangladesh government of Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, last week sent New Delhi a diplomatic note seeking her extradition. Meanwhile, the Indian government has told Bangladesh it is concerned about a spate of attacks against Bangladeshi Hindus. Dhaka, on its part, insists that most attacks have been political in nature – against perceived supporters of Sheikh Hasina – rather than religious in their character. Bangladesh has also accused Indian media channels of exaggerating the scale of violence against Hindus. These tensions between the two governments have also impacted visa issuances. On August 26, a protest broke out at the Indian visa centre in Dhaka over processing delays, after the authority resumed “limited operations” in protest-hit Bangladesh on August 13. Across the border, a Bangladeshi diplomatic mission in the northeast Indian city of Agartala was attacked by a mob in early December, prompting a strong protest from Dhaka. On January 1, the usually bustling premises of the Indian visa centre in Dhaka appeared nearly deserted. Only a few applicants were waiting to submit their documents. Most applicants received calls to submit their visa applications and fees at the visa centre after manually providing a copy to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka days earlier. However, Khadiza, who followed the same process a month ago, was unsuccessful. A visa centre official told Al Jazeera that the high commission has begun accepting more emergency applications, though online submission options remain limited. Some Bangladeshis, who delayed their travel to India for treatment as they waited for tensions to ease, are now stuck with expired visas. “My and my wife’s visas were valid until December 10, but we didn’t travel then due to tensions over Bangladesh-related issues in India,” said 40-year-old Shariful Islam, from Joypurhat in northwestern Bangladesh. Advertisement Islam suffers from a lung disease. He and five other family members – each with their own health issues, including his wife and father – have for the past four years been travelling regularly to the eastern Indian city of Kolkata and the southern city of Vellore for medical treatment. In a rural area of Joypurhat, Ridowan Hossain, who runs a visa support agency, has meanwhile been struggling to secure visa appointment slots for patients, including a cancer patient urgently seeking treatment in India. Over 10 days, he repeatedly attempted to complete the online application process but consistently faced failures at the payment stage, he said. When he called a helpline, he said he was just told to try again. “I process over 300 Indian visas annually, but I haven’t been able to process a single one since July,” he said. Now, many Bangladeshi patients are seeking alternative treatment options in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Turkiye. Mazadul Noyon, manager of Suea Noi Fit & Fly, a Bangkok-based medical and tour operator agency, told Al Jazeera that inquiries from Bangladesh have doubled compared to before August. “Although around 80 percent of patients consider Thailand after failing to secure an Indian visa, most abandon the idea upon learning of the 10-15 times higher costs in Thailand,” he said. For example, the initial treatment cost for Khadiza’s husband – covering diagnosis, medicine, consultation, and related expenses – along with travel and accommodation, would range from US$1,000 to US$2,000 in India, compared to at least US$10,000 to US$15,000 in Thailand. Advertisement For a cardiac ring implant, costs in Thailand range from $5,000 to $20,000 – depending on the hospital, excluding travel and accommodation. In India, $2,000

Myanmar’s military regime to free thousands of prisoners in amnesty

Myanmar’s military regime to free thousands of prisoners in amnesty

Myanmar’s military rulers announced an amnesty for 5,864 prisoners to mark Independence Day, state media reports. Myanmar’s military rulers will release 5,864 prisoners, including 180 foreigners, under an amnesty to mark the country’s 77 years of independence from British colonial rule, state media said. The military said on Saturday that it had ordered the release “on humanitarian and compassionate grounds” and would commute the life sentences of 144 people to 15 years, according to state-run MRTV television. Details were not provided of what the prisoners had been convicted of and the nationalities of the foreign detainees, who were set to be deported on release, were not known. The Associated Press news agency said the foreigners to be released could include four Thai fishermen who were arrested by Myanmar’s navy in late November after patrol boats opened fire on Thai fishing vessels in waters close to their maritime border in the Andaman Sea. Thailand’s prime minister has said she expects the four to be released on Independence Day. Myanmar regularly grants amnesty to thousands of people to commemorate holidays or Buddhist festivals. Last year the military government announced the release of more than 9,000 prisoners to mark independence. A similar release took place in October 2021. Advertisement Among those still imprisoned is the country’s former leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The 79-year-old is serving a 27-year sentence tied to 14 criminal charges brought against her by the military, ranging from incitement and election fraud to corruption. She denies all the charges. This year’s Independence Day ceremony was held in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw and involved 500 representatives from the government and military. A speech by Myanmar’s military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing – who was not present at the event – was delivered by deputy prime minister and army general, Soe Win. Soe Win, deputy commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s Defence Services, leaves after a ceremony to mark Myanmar’s 77th Independence Day in Naypyidaw on January 4, 2025 [AFP] In the speech, he called on ethnic minority armed groups, that have been fighting military rule for the last four years, to put down their weapons and “resolve the political issue through peaceful means”. Myanmar has been in turmoil since early 2021, when the military overthrew an elected civilian government and violently suppressed pro-democracy protests, leading to a nationwide armed rebellion that has made strong gains against the military on the battlefield. Two weeks ago a rebel group known as the Arakan Army captured a major regional command in the country’s west, the second to fall to the armed resistance movement in five months. The group also recently took control of a 271km (168 mile) stretch of the border with Bangladesh when it captured the town of Maungdaw. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)

The US soldiers returning to Vietnam in search of mass graves

The US soldiers returning to Vietnam in search of mass graves

It is August 2022, and four Americans – all men in their 70s – disembark at a small airport outside Quy Nhon, a city of about half a million located on the south-central coast of Vietnam and the capital of the Binh Dinh province. With its lush landscapes and stunning tropical beaches, it is hard to accept that the region was the setting of fierce fighting during the Vietnam War, which ended 50 years ago this coming April. The Americans exit the airport and are met by Major Dang Ha Thuy – a uniformed Vietnamese man, also elderly – who greets them warmly. Half a century ago, they would have exchanged gunfire; today, they exchange handshakes and smiles. They have been drawn together by a shared mission. Thuy has spent 20 years searching for the missing remains of his North Vietnamese comrades lost in battle, and the Americans have come to help. Not only might these veterans know where some of the bodies can be found, but they are the ones who buried them. The five board a shuttle along with a film crew from VTV4 – a Vietnamese television network facilitating and documenting the trip – which carries them all to Xuan Son Hill, a remote point in the Kim Son Valley. Fifty years ago, it was the site of a brutal battle at the United States Army’s Firebase Bird – and until recently, it was the location of a mass grave containing the remains of 60 people. Major Thuy consoles a tearful Steve Hassett [Screen capture from the documentary Fragment of Memory] The battle at Firebase Bird By 1966, Vietnam’s civil war had been raging for more than a decade, and US involvement had grown from a smattering of military advisers and special forces to a sprawling army of 400,000. While the violence would not peak for another two years, the casualty rate was already rising fast. Hundreds of US personnel were killed every month, and the Vietnamese losses were much worse. Before ending in 1975, about 58,000 Americans, 350,000 Laotians and Cambodians, and between 1-3 million Vietnamese were killed in the war. On Christmas of 1966, a declared truce would suspend the carnage for 30 hours. For American soldiers holed up at Firebase Bird – a small helicopter landing zone and staging base – it was a much-needed opportunity for rest amid the “search and destroy” mission that had them slogging through the jungles of Binh Dinh in search of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and guerrilla forces. But when the truce expired in the early morning hours of December 27, the NVA attacked. “We were totally surprised,” reported Spencer Matteson half a century later in Fragments of Memory, a 2023 VTV4-produced documentary about the battle and search for its resulting mass graves. Matteson only survived the initial onslaught due to a last-minute bunker switch – the soldier who took his place was killed instantly by a direct mortar strike. As the rounds rained down, he said, “It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I’ve never been able to hear right since.” Advertisement It did not take long for the attacking forces to overwhelm the hill and base, and soon, the American defenders only had their last remaining heavy gun. From this, they fired a last-ditch weapon called a “beehive”, which scattered a barrage of small projectiles in every direction and finally broke the attack. After the firing died down, the smoke cleared and the sun rose, 27 Americans had been killed and 67 had been wounded. Exact figures for Vietnamese casualties are less certain, but official records number the dead at 267. “The battlefield was covered with dead bodies,” said a tearful Matteson in the documentary. “It’s just horrible beyond belief.” When I later spoke with Matteson, he went into greater detail about the hours following the battle. “They dug a big pit with a small bulldozer”, he explained, “and then we were put on details to drag the enemy dead over there. I was on one of those details too. The aftermath of the thing was almost even worse than the battle itself. When the sun came up it was like a nightmare. It was like waking up inside a Hieronymus Bosch painting. It was really grim. I remember very clearly. The whole thing was etched in my mind”. “Soldiers had dragged a lot of the dead NVA to a central point in the LZ [landing zone],” recalls survivor Steve Hassett. “And at that point, I began taking photographs.” These photos would come into play some 50 years later. “It was like your worst nightmare,” said Matteson. “It didn’t look real, but it was. And for an 18-year-old kid to see stuff like that, it’s not good psychologically. It’s never left me.” Advertisement Though Matteson and Hassett soon returned home, the war raged for another six years. After it ended, life moved on. The jungle reclaimed the site cleared for Firebase Bird. And the Vietnamese families of those killed attacking it were left to wonder about the remains of their lost loved ones. Decades passed. Photo taken after the massacre at US Army Firebase Bird on December 27, 1966. An 18-year-old Steve Hassett shot the scene with a Kodak Instamatic he says he barely knew how to use [Courtesy of Steve Hassett] A stolen statue comes full-circle For Matteson, like so many veterans and civilians touched by the war, life in its wake was not easy. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) resulted in alcohol and drug abuse, which in turn ruined his marriage. Then, in 1991, Matteson got sober and began attending reunions with other veterans. Around that time, he found among his things a long-forgotten memento picked up during the war: a small Buddhist statue stolen from a pagoda. “That statue was the start of everything,” Le Hoang Linh, the filmmaker behind Fragments of Memory, told Al Jazeera. It set in motion a chain of events that would eventually reveal

A user’s manual to certifying the presidential election

A user’s manual to certifying the presidential election

The House and Senate will meet on Monday in a Joint Session of Congress to certify the results of the 2024 presidential vote. The Capitol riot and contretemps over certification of the 2020 presidential election converted the quadrennial, often sleepy affair of certifying the Electoral College into a full-blown national security event. Congressional security officials began erecting 10-foot-high fencing around the outer perimeter of the Capitol complex over the past few days. Some of the fences extend beyond the usual “Capitol Square” which includes the Capitol building itself. One such fence was all the way around the outer boundaries of the Russell Senate Park. One of the great ironies in the American political system is that the person who lost the race for the presidency often presides over their own defeat. In this case, Vice President Harris. Harris remains the Vice President until January 20. That also means she continues as President of the Senate.  Others have performed this onerous task of certifying their own defeat. Future President Richard Nixon was Vice President when he lost to President John F. Kennedy in 1960. Nixon then certified JFK as the winner in January 1961. Former Vice President Al Gore ceded his election to President George W. Bush after the disputed 2000 election and tumult over which candidate actually won Florida. Gore was then at the Capitol to seal Bush’s victory in January 2001. TRUMP RECLAIMS INFLUENCE OF GOP AS REPUBLICANS FALL IN LINE BEHIND JOHNSON Here’s what the 12th Amendment to the Constitution says about Congress signing off on the election results: “The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” This dictates a Joint Session of Congress. This is where the House and Senate meet together, simultaneously, usually in the House chamber. The Speaker of the House presides alongside the President of the Senate: in this case, Vice President Harris. But Harris kind of runs the show. The House and Senate only meet in a Joint Session of Congress to receive the President for State of the Union and to certify the election outcome. And since the House successfully elected a Speaker on Friday afternoon, the House and Senate can convene the Joint Session. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will co-preside over the session atop the dais in the House chamber. Things are different compared to this exercise four years ago. The relatively routine, almost ceremonial, certification of the Electoral College forever changed on January 6, 2021, following the Capitol riot. JEFFRIES CLAIMS ‘NO ELECTION DENIERS’ AMONG DEMS DESPITE 2016 ‘ILLEGITIMATE’ REMARKS WHEN TRUMP WON Capitol Police began restricting vehicular traffic on streets around the Capitol complex early Monday morning. Access to the House and Senate Office Buildings are limited to members, staff and visitors who are there are on official business. There will only be a few access points for pedestrians to the Capitol grounds. Official Capitol tours are suspended. Johnson will call the House to order around 1 p.m. EST on Monday. House Sergeant at Arms Bill McFarland will announce the arrival of Harris and senators as they enter the House chamber. Members of the House Administration Committee and Senate Rules Committee will serve as “tellers” to assist in the tabulation of the electoral votes. DEMOCRATS HAVE MIXED REACTION TO JOHNSON’S SPEAKER VICTORY: ‘HELL HAS FROZEN OVER’ Harris will declare that the House and Senate are meeting in the Joint Session and announce “that the certificates (of election) are authentic and correct in form.” Starting with Alabama, it’s likely that one of the tellers will read the following: “The certificate of the electoral vote of the State of Alabama seems to be regular in form and authentic. It appears therefore that Donald John Trump of the State of Florida received nine votes for President and JD Vance of the State of Ohio received nine votes for Vice President.” And on we go. In late 2022, lawmakers made several changes to the 1887 “Electoral Count Act.” Congress initially passed the Electoral Count Act in response to the disputed election of 1876. Multiple states sent competing slates of electors to Washington. Lawmakers determined there was no formality to tabulating the Electoral College results. Democrat Samuel Tilden prevailed in the popular vote. But President Rutherford B. Hayes won the White House – after a special commission empaneled by Congress presented him with 20 electoral votes in dispute. The 2022 Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act clarified the role of the Vice President in the Joint Session of Congress. President-elect Trump and other loyalists leaned on then-Vice President Pence to assert himself in the process. Many demanded that he accept alternative slates of electors from the states in question. The updated law states that the Vice President’s role is simply “ministerial.” The new statute says the Vice President lacks the power “to determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.” VP HARRIS MOCKED FOR FLUBBING OPENING LINE OF PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE: ‘WHAT AN EMBARASSMENT’ The new law also established an expedited judicial appellate process for litigation regarding electoral votes. Finally, the law altered how lawmakers themselves can contest a state’s slate of electors during the Joint Session. The old system required one House member and one senator to sign a petition challenging an individual state’s electoral slate. In 2021, Republicans planned to challenge as many as six swing states. They ultimately questioned two. In 2001, multiple members of the Congressional Black Caucus tried to challenge Florida’s slate of electors. But they had no Senate co-sponsor. After Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., made her entreaty to question Florida’s electoral votes, Al Gore – again, presiding over his own loss – asked if the California Democrat had a Senate cohort. Waters replied that she did not and “did not care.” Gore then responded with a statesmanlike proclamation that salved the