GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Monday, August 1, where there's only one chamber left in town. But get Marie Kondo up here, it could get messy . VETERANS KEEP VIGIL — The Senate is expected to vote again this week on a bill to expand benefits and medical options for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while deployed. Republicans tanked the bill last week. Twenty-five Republicans who voted against moving forward on the bill last week voted for it back in June. Republicans want an amendment vote to make changes to discretionary versus mandatory spending in the bill and they say a dispute over those numbers is what prompted their "no" votes last week. After Senators left for the weekend, veterans groups did not. They camped out on the Capitol steps all weekend, undaunted by the rain, in a "fire watch" demonstration to call for passage of the legislation. President Joe Biden did a video call with the group and sent pizzas, after a rebound of Covid kept him from visiting in-person. "I will hold a new vote this week, and I am urging everyone to vote 'yes'," Schumer told reporters at a press conference in New York on Sunday. More from Leo Shane at Military Times on the budget fight over the burn pits bill: Burn pits benefits bill concerns aren't new, hinge on budget moves . PELOSI TRIP TO ASIA — Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) kicked off what has become a tense tour of Asia. She arrived in Singapore Monday and plans to hold high-level meetings in Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. Unnamed Biden administration officials told the New York Times that Pelosi's trip is indeed expected to include a stop in Taiwan, which will inflame tensions with China. If she does make a stop on the self-governing island, it would be the highest-level visit by a U.S. official in 25 years. Pelosi is no stranger to unnerving the Chinese government. She unfurled a banner in Beijing's Tiananmen Square during a 1991 visit that read "To those who died for democracy in China." Pelosi is traveling with Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.). CASES, CLOSED — Stock violations, dismissed: The House Ethics Committee dismissed cases alleging that Reps. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), John Rutherford (R-Fla.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) violated the STOCK Act by failing to properly report their stock trades. All three cases were referred to the panel by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which found "substantial reason to believe" that the violations occurred. Suozzi's lawyers admit that he failed to file periodic transaction reports. They say he "made every effort to disclose every reportable transaction on his annual financial disclosure statements. Until August 2021, he was unaware that his transactions also needed to be disclosed on PTRs." They blame a junior accountant for not passing along an email. He cooperated with the OCE inquiry and filed a flurry of corrective disclosures on more than 450 transactions from between January 2017 and August 2021, valued between $6 million and $19 million. Back in March, Fallon and Rutherford's lawyer (they have the same one) said there "was and is literally nothing to investigate here" in both cases but also acknowledged that the two lawmakers did fail to file timely Periodic Transaction Reports and that the information has since been filed and fines paid. Arrests settled: The seventeen members of Congress who were arrested in mid-July while protesting in front of the Supreme Court in support of abortion rights will not face further inquiry. All the members have either paid their $50 fine or plan to and the Ethics panel considers the matter closed . The same goes for Rep. Andy Levin's (D-Mich.) arrest the following day in support of Senate dining workers. He's paid his fines for both arrests.
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