Monday morning news: March 25, 2024

ISIS terror attack Russia » The U.S. government is forcefully refuting Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that Ukraine was linked to a deadly terrorist attack at a concert hall near Moscow.

Vice President Kamala Harris:

HARRIS: There is no — whatsoever — any evidence, and in fact, what we know to be the case is that ISIS-K is actually, by all accounts, responsible for what happened.

The Afghanistan arm of ISIS has claimed responsibility for the massacre, which killed more than 130 people.

But that hasn’t stopped Putin from trying to publicly tie Ukraine to the attack. He told Russians in an address to the nation … that the gunmen were arrested after trying to escape.

PUTIN: They tried to hide and move toward Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side.

The United States and Kyiv say Putin may be angling to use the incident as a false flag justification … to escalate attacks against Ukraine.

Weeks earlier, the U.S. government warned of intelligence indicating that extremists had “imminent plans” to target large gatherings in Moscow. Putin dismissed the warning as, “provocative.”

Israel-Gaza latest » The U.N. Security Council plans to vote today on a call for an immediate Ramadan cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Russia and China back the resolution after vetoing a U.S.-led cease-fire resolution last week.

Beijing and Moscow claimed the earlier resolution was too vague, but the U.S. government said they had ulterior motives for blocking it.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield:

GREENFIELD: Russia and China simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States, because they would rather see us fail than to see this council succeed.

Washington says the new draft resolution fails to condemn Hamas for its October massacre in Israel and that it would give the terror group an excuse to walk away from ongoing cease-fire negotiations.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate speaker » Georgia GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene says her push to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, is only a warning, for now.

GREENE: I filed this motion to vacate, but I haven’t called it to the floor. This is like issuing a pink slip and giving our conference a notice saying that we have got to find a new speaker. This may take weeks. It may take months.

She says a spending bill the House passed last week to avert a shutdown — and recent GOP retirements show the speaker’s not in control.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy knows the sting of being ousted, but he had this message for Speaker Johnson:

MCCARTHY: Do not be fearful of a motion to vacate. I do not think they can do it again. I don’t think the Democrats will go along with it too.

He said that’s because matters of concern to Democratic members could stall if the speakership is vacated again. He told CBS’ Face the Nation that Johnson should move forward fearlessly.

Funding package » And speaking of that $1.2 trillion dollar funding bill the House passed last week, President Biden signed it into law over the weekend.

That came after the Senate approved it in the overnight hours early Saturday morning.

AUDIO: On this vote, the yeas are 74. The nays 24.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton was one of those 74 yeas.

COTTON: This is far from a perfect bill. I wish it had been written very differently. I wish it had been written in a different way. But about 70 percent of the money in the bill goes to our military. It funds very needful priorities, like pay raises for our troops, or investments in our industrial base to build up the weapons and munitions we might need in a conflict with, say, China over Taiwan.

Pride flag ban » The White House is vowing to work to overturn one provision of the funding package.

A rule tucked into that bill effectively blocks the government from flying Pride flags over U.S. embassies around the world.

Obama administration officials were the first to raise Pride flags at U.S. embassies. President Trump halted that practice, before President Biden brought it back.

The new ban stipulates that most flags other than the Stars and Stripes are barred from embassy flagpoles.

China land buying in U.S. » The United States must stop China from buying up U.S. farmland immediately. That’s the message from many in Washington and in state houses across the country.

GOP Congressman Mark Alford:

ALFORD: I don’t believe that any foreign adversarial nation or citizen thereof should be able to buy any land, not even an outhouse, in the United States of America. 

Chinese ownership of U.S. land has grown by more than 250 percent since 2012, now roughly 400,000 acres.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem says that trend could give China alarming sway over our food supplies.

NOEM: And a country that can’t feed ourselves — we are no longer in control of our destiny. So if we think a pandemic was scary, imagine what happens when they control our food.

She recently signed a bill blocking foreign entities from buying farmland in her state. Almost half the states in the country now have similar restrictions.

But many are just as concerned about where that land is being purchased reportedly near sensitive intelligence sites, military bases, critical water sources, and national labs.

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville has authored a federal bill that would block foreign adversaries from buying American land.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Government coercion on this week’s Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

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