Showing posts with label congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label congress. Show all posts
Apr 15, 2025
Apr 9, 2025
Apr 5, 2025
Bad Government
Once Republicans lined up behind the dumbass generic notions that people can't possibly be working if they're working from home, and that voting any way other than in person is outright fraud, they can't help but apply their shit in a thick even coat across everything they see.
They want us to believe they're just adhering to principle, but we all know they have no principles because they keep talking one way and then doing things that run opposite to what they say.
This is as perfect an example as anything. They yell about freedom and democracy, and then do whatever they can to keep certain people from freely exercising their right - even duty - to vote. Especially when it comes to women.
Case in point:
Johnson fails to kill bipartisan measure to allow proxy voting for new parents
After the vote, Speaker Mike Johnson abruptly canceled votes for the rest of the week
WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday tried and failed to kill a bipartisan effort to change House rules so that lawmakers would temporarily be allowed to vote remotely after the birth of a child, suffering an embarrassing defeat that paralyzed the chamber and signaled that the proposal could soon be adopted.
Using strong-arm tactics in a bid to block the measure, Johnson tried an extraordinary use of the speaker’s power to prevent the House from even considering a measure backed by half its members. But nine Republicans refused to go along, instead dealing him a public rebuke that left him without a strategy for moving ahead.
After the vote, Johnson abruptly canceled votes for the rest of the week, sending members home and leaving legislative business unsettled. Under House rules, Republican leaders are required to bring the proxy voting resolution to a vote within two legislative days. But they appeared to be refusing to do anything else until the holdouts in their party cave, which they have shown no sign of doing. As Republicans left Washington for the week having passed no bills, it was not clear how or when the issue would be resolved.
The showdown on the House floor was a capstone of a long-running fight over the rights of new parents in Congress.
It began over a year ago, when Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., began agitating for a change to House rules that would allow new mothers to designate a colleague to vote by proxy on their behalf for up to six weeks after giving birth. Luna landed on the idea after her own child was born.
There is no maternity or paternity leave for lawmakers, who can take time away from office without sacrificing their pay but cannot vote if they are not physically in the Capitol. Proponents of the change have called it a common-sense fix to modernize Congress, where more women and more younger members serve now than did 200 years ago.
Democrats, including Reps. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, who gave birth this year to her second child, and Sara Jacobs of California, joined Luna’s effort, expanding the resolution to include new fathers and up to 12 weeks of proxy voting during a parental leave.
Johnson has adamantly opposed the group at every turn, arguing that proxy voting is unacceptable and unconstitutional, even though the Supreme Court refused to take up a Republican-led lawsuit challenging pandemic-era proxy voting rules in the House.
On Tuesday, he used an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver to close off the only path that members of the House have for steering around their leaders and forcing a vote on a measure that has majority support.
But that measure failed on the floor by a 222-206 vote, keeping alive the proxy voting proposal. Eight Republicans joined Luna and all Democrats in voting no.
Johnson and his allies have argued that any accommodation that allows members to vote without being at the Capitol, no matter how narrow, creates a slippery slope for more, and that it harms member collegiality.
“I do believe it’s an existential issue for this body,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who chairs the Rules Committee, said Tuesday. “Congress is defined as the ‘act of coming together and meeting.’”
Later on the floor, Foxx asserted flatly: “Put simply, members of Congress need to show up for work.”
When Johnson refused to bring the bill to the floor, Luna and her cohorts used a tool called the discharge petition — a demand signed by 218 members of the House, the majority of the body — to force consideration of the measure.
But on Tuesday morning, Republicans on the Rules Committee, often referred to as the “speaker’s committee” because the speaker uses it to maintain control of the floor, engineered a tricky behind-the-scenes maneuver to kill the effort.
They approved a measure that would block the proxy voting bill or any legislation on a similar topic from reaching the floor during the remainder of the Congress, effectively nullifying the discharge petition and closing off any chance for its supporters to secure a vote on the matter for the next two years.
GOP lawmakers inserted it into an unrelated resolution to allow for a vote on the SAVE Act, legislation requiring people to prove their citizenship when they register to vote, in a bid to pressure Republicans to support it. That is the measure that failed Tuesday on the floor.
Democrats implored Republicans to consider the proxy voting change, which they argued was vital to allowing all lawmakers to do their jobs.
“It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress to address these very unique challenges that members face — these life events, where our voices should still be heard, our constituents should still be represented,” Pettersen said on the House floor, holding her 9-week-old son, Sam, who gurgled in her arms.
She denounced Johnson’s maneuver, saying: “It is anti-woman. It is anti-family.”
They also called the move an unprecedented attempt to shut down a crucial mechanism in the House for ensuring that measures that have majority support are voted upon.
“Republicans love to talk about family values, but when given the chance to actually support families, they turn their backs,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “If you want to protect your rights as members of Congress, you should vote no here.”
In trying to block the measure, Johnson took a gamble, risking public humiliation in a bid to thwart a resolution that had support from members of both parties.
Johnson even leaned on President Donald Trump to help him, people familiar with the conversations said, hoping the president could urge Luna, a stalwart Trump supporter, to stand down. The pressure campaign, however, appeared to have only strengthened Luna’s resolve.
On Monday, Luna resigned from the House Freedom Caucus, citing its members’ unwillingness to back her in what she called a “modest, family-centered proposal.”
After the vote Tuesday, she told reporters the proposal would improve the House and the country.
“We had a good majority of Republicans as well that agreed this needs to change and it’s part of a healthy republic,” she said. She added that it was a big day for the institution “and allowing new parents to have a voice in Washington.”
Johnson’s view is in line with the longtime Republican position on proxy voting.
Republicans savaged Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for breaking with centuries of history and House rules by instituting proxy voting during the coronavirus pandemic. When he was minority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., filed an unsuccessful lawsuit arguing that allowing a member of Congress to deputize a colleague to cast a vote on their behalf when they were not present was unconstitutional.
Johnson and his allies have argued that any accommodation that allows members to vote without being at the Capitol, no matter how narrow, creates a slippery slope for more, and that it harms member collegiality.
“I do believe it’s an existential issue for this body,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who chairs the Rules Committee, said Tuesday. “Congress is defined as the ‘act of coming together and meeting.’”
Later on the floor, Foxx asserted flatly: “Put simply, members of Congress need to show up for work.”
When Johnson refused to bring the bill to the floor, Luna and her cohorts used a tool called the discharge petition — a demand signed by 218 members of the House, the majority of the body — to force consideration of the measure.
But on Tuesday morning, Republicans on the Rules Committee, often referred to as the “speaker’s committee” because the speaker uses it to maintain control of the floor, engineered a tricky behind-the-scenes maneuver to kill the effort.
They approved a measure that would block the proxy voting bill or any legislation on a similar topic from reaching the floor during the remainder of the Congress, effectively nullifying the discharge petition and closing off any chance for its supporters to secure a vote on the matter for the next two years.
GOP lawmakers inserted it into an unrelated resolution to allow for a vote on the SAVE Act, legislation requiring people to prove their citizenship when they register to vote, in a bid to pressure Republicans to support it. That is the measure that failed Tuesday on the floor.
Democrats implored Republicans to consider the proxy voting change, which they argued was vital to allowing all lawmakers to do their jobs.
“It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress to address these very unique challenges that members face — these life events, where our voices should still be heard, our constituents should still be represented,” Pettersen said on the House floor, holding her 9-week-old son, Sam, who gurgled in her arms.
She denounced Johnson’s maneuver, saying: “It is anti-woman. It is anti-family.”
They also called the move an unprecedented attempt to shut down a crucial mechanism in the House for ensuring that measures that have majority support are voted upon.
“Republicans love to talk about family values, but when given the chance to actually support families, they turn their backs,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “If you want to protect your rights as members of Congress, you should vote no here.”
In trying to block the measure, Johnson took a gamble, risking public humiliation in a bid to thwart a resolution that had support from members of both parties.
Johnson even leaned on President Donald Trump to help him, people familiar with the conversations said, hoping the president could urge Luna, a stalwart Trump supporter, to stand down. The pressure campaign, however, appeared to have only strengthened Luna’s resolve.
On Monday, Luna resigned from the House Freedom Caucus, citing its members’ unwillingness to back her in what she called a “modest, family-centered proposal.”
After the vote Tuesday, she told reporters the proposal would improve the House and the country.
“We had a good majority of Republicans as well that agreed this needs to change and it’s part of a healthy republic,” she said. She added that it was a big day for the institution “and allowing new parents to have a voice in Washington.”
Johnson’s view is in line with the longtime Republican position on proxy voting.
Republicans savaged Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for breaking with centuries of history and House rules by instituting proxy voting during the coronavirus pandemic. When he was minority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., filed an unsuccessful lawsuit arguing that allowing a member of Congress to deputize a colleague to cast a vote on their behalf when they were not present was unconstitutional.
Mar 4, 2025
Rhyming History
In the Upside Down
Johnson says Zelenskyy may need to resign
Speaker Mike Johnson said Zelenskyy either needs to “come to his senses” or step down to end the war in Ukraine.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might need to resign to bring peace to his country following a contentious meeting between Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Friday.
“Something has to change,” Johnson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, echoing comments made Friday by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that.”
Johnson’s comments on Sunday come on the heels of a heated exchange between Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance in the Oval Office on Friday, where Zelenskyy was accused of not sharing enough gratitude for U.S.’s role in trying to end the war and not wanting to come to a peace agreement.
“The fact that he acted as he did, I think, was a great disappointment,” Johnson said of Zelenskyy’s behavior in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The meeting was supposed to be followed by the signing of a minerals deal aimed to provide future security guarantees for Ukraine. However, the rest of Zelenskyy’s visit was canceled after the Oval Office argument, with Trump posting to the social media platform Truth Social that Zelenskyy “disrespected the United States in its cherished Oval Office” and can only “come back when he is ready for Peace.”
Zelenskyy was subsequently ejected from the White House, leading to additional criticism of Trump for his rhetoric and behavior that day.
On Saturday, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski — a sometimes critic of Trump since he returned to office — disparaged Trump’s behavior toward Zelenskyy on Friday in a post to X, saying the U.S. is “walking away from our allies and embracing Putin.”
On CNN, Johnson said the Alaska Republican is “plainly wrong,” adding that “the person who walked away from the table yesterday was President Zelenskyy.”
While Johnson offered support for Trump on blaming Zelenskyy for Friday’s failed meeting, he did criticize Russia and Putin in both interviews — something Trump has shied away from doing, particularly since returning to office.
“I’d like to see Putin defeated, frankly,” Johnson said on NBC. “He is an adversary of the United States. But in this conflict, we’ve got to bring it into this war. It’s in everybody’s interest.”
“Putin is the aggressor,” Johnson said on CNN. “It is an unjust war. We have been crystal clear about that.”
Dateline Washington, 1940:
Speaker of The House Sam Rayburn today called on Winston Churchill to resign, demanded the UK cede Scotland to Germany, and the US halt Lend Lease immediately - in the noble pursuit of a lasting peace with Mr Hitler.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Zelenskyy either needs to “come to his senses” or step down to end the war in Ukraine.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might need to resign to bring peace to his country following a contentious meeting between Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Friday.
“Something has to change,” Johnson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, echoing comments made Friday by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that.”
Johnson’s comments on Sunday come on the heels of a heated exchange between Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance in the Oval Office on Friday, where Zelenskyy was accused of not sharing enough gratitude for U.S.’s role in trying to end the war and not wanting to come to a peace agreement.
“The fact that he acted as he did, I think, was a great disappointment,” Johnson said of Zelenskyy’s behavior in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The meeting was supposed to be followed by the signing of a minerals deal aimed to provide future security guarantees for Ukraine. However, the rest of Zelenskyy’s visit was canceled after the Oval Office argument, with Trump posting to the social media platform Truth Social that Zelenskyy “disrespected the United States in its cherished Oval Office” and can only “come back when he is ready for Peace.”
Zelenskyy was subsequently ejected from the White House, leading to additional criticism of Trump for his rhetoric and behavior that day.
On Saturday, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski — a sometimes critic of Trump since he returned to office — disparaged Trump’s behavior toward Zelenskyy on Friday in a post to X, saying the U.S. is “walking away from our allies and embracing Putin.”
On CNN, Johnson said the Alaska Republican is “plainly wrong,” adding that “the person who walked away from the table yesterday was President Zelenskyy.”
While Johnson offered support for Trump on blaming Zelenskyy for Friday’s failed meeting, he did criticize Russia and Putin in both interviews — something Trump has shied away from doing, particularly since returning to office.
“I’d like to see Putin defeated, frankly,” Johnson said on NBC. “He is an adversary of the United States. But in this conflict, we’ve got to bring it into this war. It’s in everybody’s interest.”
“Putin is the aggressor,” Johnson said on CNN. “It is an unjust war. We have been crystal clear about that.”
Mar 1, 2025
Bye, Mitch
If you've worn out your welcome to the point that almost nobody notices when you wave bye-bye, it's more than just a little humiliating.
And I can't think of anybody more deserving of that kind of swift kick in the balls than Mitch McConnell.
There was a time I could've tipped my hat and said a gallant farewell to a worthy adversary. But we have a ridiculously hard right Supreme Court because of him. And we're saddled with this totally fucked up Trump 2.0 because of him.
So fuck off, Mitch. I hope you get ass cancer and die a slow painful death.
Mitch McConnell arrives in hell, and is greeted by the New Arrivals Orientation demon who tells him he has his choice among three options for how he'll spend eternity.
They go thru a door into a room filled with guys swimming laps in a pool filled with liquified pig shit and slimy moldering garbage.
In the next room, everybody's wrestling naked with porcupines in a cactus patch while hovering vultures peck out their eyes.
In the third room is Joe Stalin, strapped to a bed of sharp stones while Monica Lewinski blows him.
The demon tells Mitch to choose, and Mitch says he'll go with the third option. And the demo says, "OK, thanks, Monica - you can go now."
After nearly four decades of quietly and shrewdly amassing power, “Old Crow’s” farewell tour has been overshadowed by health hiccups and the chaos of Trump 2.0, with little to no fanfare. “Mitch McConnellism,” as one Kentucky radio host says, “is dead.”
Senator Mitch McConnell stood on the Senate floor last week on his 83rd birthday to announce that he would not seek an eighth term as Kentucky’s senior senator in 2026. “My current term in the Senate will be my last,” he muttered in his signature gravelly drawl. The response was tepid. So much so that North Carolina Republican senator Thom Tillis had to request unanimous consent for a 30-second round of applause. About 20 senators, six pages, and a smattering of floor staff slowly rose to their feet to clap, breaking a few seconds early to move onto other matters.
It was a subdued send-off, symbolizing an unlikely fate for the most influential Senate Republican leader of the last half-century, a man who built the modern GOP in his own image—only to find himself abandoned by it in old age. Indeed, the party he so ruthlessly shaped over his four-decade senatorial career has been hijacked by Donald Trump, a man he reportedly personally detests but whose political rise he enabled. Now, as Trump’s grip on the Republican Party tightens, McConnell is taking his final bow as a relic of a political era—one of quiet plotting and backroom dealmaking—that no longer exists.
“‘Mitch McConnellism’ as a political philosophy is dead,” Matt Jones, a Louisville sportscaster who considered a Senate run against McConnell in 2020, told me.
To be sure, McConnell’s swan song hasn’t been without bite: In a December essay, the outgoing senator openly criticized the right’s isolationist rhetoric on foreign policy, and lamented that Trump has “courted Putin” and “treated [NATO] allies and alliance commitments erratically and sometimes with hostility.” More recently, he was one of three Senate Republicans to vote against the confirmation of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—a move that Senator Jack Reed told me he personally found “courageous.” McConnell was also the only senator to vote against confirming Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Needless to say, it was a strange sight to see McConnell, once the Senate GOP’s ideological lodestar, become the lone holdout in a conference of his own making. Still, “he loves the Senate,” Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, told me during a hallway interview Tuesday, “and he’s very concerned that we keep the Senate as our founders intended it to be.”
To Trump’s presumptive delight, McConnell did join the GOP fold in voting to confirm Kash Patel for a 10-year term as FBI Director. “I hope and expect he will move quickly to reset the Bureau with greater transparency, accountability, and cooperation with Congress,” the senator said in a statement after the vote.
On Wednesday, I asked McConnell to elaborate further on that position. “I think I’m going to continue my habit of not doing press between the Capitol and here,” he laughed. “Good try!”
I expected just as much; McConnell famously avoids hallway interviews with the Capitol press, walking blankly through our questions, offering nothing that can be used in a news story. “He used to have selective hearing,” Senator John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, said of McConnell. “Now his hearing now is just not that good because he’s old. But it used to be fine, it was just selective…. You guys, as reporters, might have noticed that.”
For decades, McConnell was the undisputed architect of Republican power in Washington. He turned obstructionism into an art form, blocking Democratic priorities with cold efficiency. In 2016, he famously refused to grant a hearing to President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, arguing that the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat should be filled by the next president because it was an election year. Four years later, McConnell did the exact opposite, ramming through Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation mere weeks before the 2020 election. It was a duplicitous maneuver with major consequences, securing him a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court, whose makeup likely would have been the inverse if McConnell had abided by Senate precedent.
But the scheme was also peak McConnell, whose influence was never about fiery speeches or ideological grandstanding. Rather, he employed private cunning and an economy of words, rarely speaking unless it served his political ends. “To Mitch McConnell, communication means giving things away. If he tells people what he is up to, they may be able to use that against him,” said New York Times reporter Carl Hulse at the beginning of Trump’s first term in 2016.
McConnell himself once acknowledged this strategy. “I was hoping some reporter would ask me a question about anything,” he once joked to Hulse, recalling his early days in the Senate. “Now I spend most of my time smiling sweetly at you guys and walking on by.”
That discipline served him well for some time during the Trump era. But McConnell’s relevance was clearly fading by the 2020 election, the violent aftermath of which offered him one of few opportunities to rid the party of Trump for good. In the end, the then Senate majority leader voted against convicting Trump of inciting an insurrection. Meanwhile, his refusal to engage in the performative outrage that defines Trump-era politics became a liability in a party increasingly driven by personality cults and grievance politics. Trump eventually dubbed him “Old Crow,” a moniker McConnell wryly embraced and one that bemused his colleagues. “It was right after he was called ‘Old Crow’ and I think I got like an Old Crow bourbon as a gift from Mitch,” Republican senator Lisa Murkowski recounted to me. Still, the insult underscored the president’s growing stranglehold on the GOP as the party slowly slipped through the senator’s fingers.
McConnell’s body has been failing him lately—he’s suffered multiple falls, at times requiring a wheelchair. Last August, he froze at the podium during the weekly GOP leadership press conference, prompting John Barrasso to assist his exit. After he reemerged for questions, I asked the then ghostly pale senator whether he had a replacement in mind. McConnell laughed out loud, refused to take any more questions, and walked away with his then heir apparent John Thune, now the new majority leader.
But more than his health, it’s McConnell’s political standing that has deteriorated beyond repair. It now belongs to Trump, whose loyalists have taken over the Republican Senate conference and who delights in humiliating the senator whenever possible. Once the most feared man in Washington, McConnell has become an afterthought, unable to stop Trump-aligned candidates from winning primaries and reshaping the GOP in their leader’s image.
When McConnell takes his official exit, a power vacuum will emerge. Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron, a McConnell protégé turned Trump loyalist, is already eyeing his seat. What’s left for McConnell in the meantime? A slow farewell tour, another potential slate of contrarian—but inconsequential—votes, maybe a few more sound bites, and a quiet retreat into irrelevance. McConnell, the turtle who outlasted them all, is finally crawling away.
Feb 19, 2025
Feb 17, 2025
Jan 23, 2025
Jan 4, 2025
On Sausage-Making
The gang of nine:
- Roy
- Massie
- Norman
- Biggs
- Clyde
- Cloud
- Gosar
- Harris
- Perry
... with Spartz and Ogles in reserve.
And it just so happens that the new rules require 9 votes for a Motion To Vacate.
Johnson probably can't get anything done without throwing large bones to the Tantrum Caucus, so we might see an awful lot of monkey-in-the-middle type negotiations as he tries to get the Democrats to help him - which of course will require throwing large bones to them as well.
Jan 2, 2025
Today's Belle
Whether you're a politician, or an operative, or a pundit, or a reporter, or a casual observer, the main skill you need to develop is Vote-Counting - the ability to gauge where people are in the process of deciding which way they're most likely to go on any given issue.
Belle and Beau and the gang have been pretty good at it, but they always make it clear that anything can happen between the overhearing of whispers in the cloakroom, and when it's time to go on record and cast your vote in public.
My 2¢:
On the GOP side, this is a continuing fight between congress critters who at least want to make it all look like 'regular order', and the bomb-throwers who are champin' at the bit to create a full-blown constitutional crisis.
Monday, January 6th, is when Congress gets together to certify the electoral votes - and I'm not at all sure that anybody knows what happens if there's no Speaker by then.
Dec 23, 2024
Gaetz
The fact that Gaetz paid for sex is not such a big deal to me. If it's a fair transaction, and everybody's able to give their consent, and no harm done - OK, do your thing.
But it takes a special kind of dirtbag to then turn around and show off pictures and videos to the gang at the office.
That's not the kind of thing an honorable man does, Matty. You need to keep your shit to yourself - especially when you're a sitting member of Congress, and you're supposed to be setting a good example of decent, law-abiding behavior for the folks back home.
And one of your "service providers" was underage? Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't just fall off a turnip truck - I realize there are people out there who're 17-goin'-on-35, but holy fuck, dude - you're a lawmaker and a lawyer, you stoopid fucking fuck.
Former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) regularly paid for sex, possessed illegal drugs and paid a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017, according to a 42-page report released by the House Ethics Committee on Monday on President-elect Donald Trump’s former pick for attorney general.
The report cited “substantial evidence” that from 2017 to 2020, Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him,” and from 2017 to 2019, possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on “multiple different occasions.” The Ethics Committee also investigated a 2018 trip Gaetz made to the Bahamas where the panel found he accepted transportation and lodging in violation of the House rules and laws on gifts.
The GOP-led committee concluded in the document that Gaetz “violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”
The release of the report was temporarily delayed after Gaetz filed a lawsuit to halt the release of the panel’s findings, according to two people familiar with the panel’s internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. Gaetz’s lawyers requested a restraining order and injunction against the committee, arguing that its actions amounted to an “unconstitutional” attempt to “exercise jurisdiction over a private citizen through the threatened release of an investigative report containing potentially defamatory allegations,” according to the complaint.
The committee’s release of the hotly anticipated report, which came three days after Congress adjourned for the holidays Friday evening, reversed an earlier decision not to make public the results of its investigation. The report is the culmination of years-long scrutiny surrounding Gaetz and the allegations against him. The panel wrote that Gaetz was “uncooperative” throughout its review and found that he “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.”
It also concluded that he misused House resources when he employed his then-chief of staff to “assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.”
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Mississippi), who chairs the Ethics Committee, and others had opposed publicizing the report, arguing that Gaetz was no longer up for attorney general or a member of Congress. Democrats wanted to force its release, leading to a contentious debate. In the report on Monday, Guest wrote on behalf of the members who did not support the release, arguing that “the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards” on releasing a report on “an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006.”
But Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Maryland) told The Washington Post in a brief interview that there was precedent for releasing a report after a member has left office. And he argued that the panel’s work was an important public good that provided “guidance to current members of the House as to what conduct is across the line and what’s permissible.”
“The public has a right to know,” said Ivey. “Whether [Gaetz] seeks public office of a different type, or whether he seeks employment in the private sector, I think this is the type of information, given the nature of these issues, that those folks should have a right to know before they make a decision.”
In 2020, while Trump was still in office, the Justice Department began investigating Gaetz over the alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl and sex-trafficking allegations that related to whether he had paid for her travel. The Justice Department did not bring charges. Gaetz has denied all the allegations against him and pointed to the Justice Department’s decision not to charge him.
Gaetz said on X last week that he has never been charged and never had sexual contact with a minor. He posted that his behavior was “embarrassing, though not criminal” and that he had in the past “probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have.” He also said he “often” sent money to women he dated when he was single, as well as some he did not date.
On Monday, Gaetz criticized the committee for releasing the report without giving him recourse to a courtroom, “where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” he posted on X. “This is testimony from one of the alleged ‘prostitutes’ that you won’t see in the report!” Gaetz added, sharing a screenshot of testimony from one of the witnesses who appeared before the committee and said she “never charged anyone anything.”
The report cited “substantial evidence” that from 2017 to 2020, Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him,” and from 2017 to 2019, possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on “multiple different occasions.” The Ethics Committee also investigated a 2018 trip Gaetz made to the Bahamas where the panel found he accepted transportation and lodging in violation of the House rules and laws on gifts.
The GOP-led committee concluded in the document that Gaetz “violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”
The release of the report was temporarily delayed after Gaetz filed a lawsuit to halt the release of the panel’s findings, according to two people familiar with the panel’s internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. Gaetz’s lawyers requested a restraining order and injunction against the committee, arguing that its actions amounted to an “unconstitutional” attempt to “exercise jurisdiction over a private citizen through the threatened release of an investigative report containing potentially defamatory allegations,” according to the complaint.
The committee’s release of the hotly anticipated report, which came three days after Congress adjourned for the holidays Friday evening, reversed an earlier decision not to make public the results of its investigation. The report is the culmination of years-long scrutiny surrounding Gaetz and the allegations against him. The panel wrote that Gaetz was “uncooperative” throughout its review and found that he “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.”
It also concluded that he misused House resources when he employed his then-chief of staff to “assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.”
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Mississippi), who chairs the Ethics Committee, and others had opposed publicizing the report, arguing that Gaetz was no longer up for attorney general or a member of Congress. Democrats wanted to force its release, leading to a contentious debate. In the report on Monday, Guest wrote on behalf of the members who did not support the release, arguing that “the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards” on releasing a report on “an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006.”
But Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Maryland) told The Washington Post in a brief interview that there was precedent for releasing a report after a member has left office. And he argued that the panel’s work was an important public good that provided “guidance to current members of the House as to what conduct is across the line and what’s permissible.”
“The public has a right to know,” said Ivey. “Whether [Gaetz] seeks public office of a different type, or whether he seeks employment in the private sector, I think this is the type of information, given the nature of these issues, that those folks should have a right to know before they make a decision.”
In 2020, while Trump was still in office, the Justice Department began investigating Gaetz over the alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl and sex-trafficking allegations that related to whether he had paid for her travel. The Justice Department did not bring charges. Gaetz has denied all the allegations against him and pointed to the Justice Department’s decision not to charge him.
Gaetz said on X last week that he has never been charged and never had sexual contact with a minor. He posted that his behavior was “embarrassing, though not criminal” and that he had in the past “probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have.” He also said he “often” sent money to women he dated when he was single, as well as some he did not date.
On Monday, Gaetz criticized the committee for releasing the report without giving him recourse to a courtroom, “where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” he posted on X. “This is testimony from one of the alleged ‘prostitutes’ that you won’t see in the report!” Gaetz added, sharing a screenshot of testimony from one of the witnesses who appeared before the committee and said she “never charged anyone anything.”
Sep 18, 2024
Sep 1, 2024
Representative Government
Jaimie Raskin nails it perfectly - starting at about 11:05.
And there's a lot more, but let's be clear - Republicans have no intention of allowing autonomy of any kind anywhere at any time. They're in the process of strangling democracy little by little.
Aug 2, 2024
Eating Their Own
Bob Good (R-VA05) won his primary four years ago by playing on the homophobia that's still deeply embedded in the minds of American "conservatives" - his predecessor (Denver Riggleman) presided over a gay wedding, and Good used that to beat him in the primary.
Recount confirms Bob Good’s loss after GOP rallies to oust one of their own
A recount on Thursday confirmed that state Sen. John McGuire beat Good in the June election by just a few hundred votes, according to The Associated Press.
Rep. Bob Good is notorious for the scorched-earth tactics he has repeatedly used as the leader of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.
He just got burned by them.
In just two terms, Good built enemies in every wing of the Republican Party — and that opposition came out in force to align itself with state Sen. John McGuire, who defeated Good to clinch the GOP nomination for a red-leaning seat in south-central Virginia after an official recount of the June 18 primary concluded Thursday.
Good requested the recount after the initial results were within a one-point margin. The race was so close that Good was behind by just a few hundred votes in the final count, enough that the Associated Press could not call the race.
More than a month later, the Thursday recount confirmed the outcome: Good had been ousted, The Associated Press said, unable to make up the roughly 400-vote deficit out of more than 62,000 ballots cast in June. It is a stunning defeat; Good was taken down by neither personal scandal nor an ideological challenge but because of his caustic approach toward his fellow members as well as his alienation of Donald Trump. His loss is even more striking because House Republicans have moved to the right in recent years.
But the Virginia firebrand had made too many foes too quickly.
His determination to block part of the GOP’s legislative agenda by any means necessary made him unpopular with his colleagues. He endorsed Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid even before the Florida governor had entered the race against Trump. Months later, he joined with seven other members last fall to defenestrate former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. And then he needlessly inserted himself into the primaries of his Republican colleagues, spurring personal grievances that compelled them to return the favor.
“Bob Good is universally recognized to be an asshole,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), who endorsed McGuire.
And this McGuire guy is no fuckin' prize either.
It seems like these jerks just drift from place to place looking to run for office for no better reason than, "Well now - this looks like easy pickin's. These sorry rubes are just my kinda people."
In October 2019, while campaigning for re-election, McGuire declined to commit to completing his second term in office, responding to widespread speculation that he was considering a congressional campaign. After winning re-election in November, McGuire announced his candidacy for U.S. Congress for Virginia's 7th congressional district. McGuire lost a closely contested convention to state Delegate Nick Freitas, who went on to narrowly lose to Abigail Spanberger in the 2020 election.
McGuire publicly opposed Virginia's ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, pointing out that the resolution had missed the deadline for ratification.
McGuire attended Stop the Steal rallies throughout Virginia in 2020. He has claimed the COVID-19 pandemic was a "plan-demic" designed to change voting laws and rig the 2020 presidential election. McGuire admitted to attending President Donald Trump's January 6, 2021 rally in Washington, D.C., but has denied participating in the subsequent attack on the United States Capitol.
McGuire has declared his candidacy for the U.S. Congress in 2024, having been recruited by allies of former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to challenge Bob Good as part of what Politico described as a "vengeance operation" against those who voted to oust him. He was endorsed by several members of Congress and former President Donald Trump.
Jun 3, 2024
On The Roiling Of America
It would give me a warm fuzzy prideful feeling deep down in my heart to watch Fauci look straight into the camera and say, "Here I am, assholes - come and get me."
Obviously, this could rile up those assholes and trigger a whole new spate of threatening or violent actions.
But I'm enough of a cautious optimist to believe there are far more good people in this country than there are the kind of assholes who go around dropping death threats on valued, respected leaders.
So I think lots of those good people would be willing to stand up and defend a guy like Dr Fauci, and beat back the MAGA assholes who just can't manage not to act like they never outgrew their tendencies to behave like the raging morons they were in middle school.
God how I hate those fuckin' guys.
May 20, 2024
May 6, 2024
Not Gonna Happen
Marge The Impaler Greene will probably not get her way.
House set to vote on Marjorie Taylor Greene effort to remove Mike Johnson
Far-right congresswoman has spearheaded effort to oust fellow Republican as speaker but motion to vacate widely expected to fail
The House is expected to vote this week on a motion to remove Republican Mike Johnson as speaker, but the effort, spearheaded by hard-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, faces virtually no chance of success.
Greene announced on Wednesday that she would move forward with forcing a vote on Johnson’s removal this week, following through on a threat she first issued in late March. Greene has consistently attacked Johnson for advancing bills that have attracted widespread bipartisan support, such as the government spending proposal approved in March and the foreign aid package signed into law last month.
As she called for Johnson’s removal, Greene accused the speaker of abandoning his Republican principles in favor of Democratic priorities, such as Ukraine funding.
“Mike Johnson is giving [Democrats] everything they want,” Greene said Wednesday. “I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may. And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate.”
But Greene’s proposal is widely expected to fail, as House Democratic leaders indicated last week that they would vote to table, or kill, the motion to vacate the chair. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the three leaders cited the passage of the foreign aid package, which included nearly $61bn in funding for Ukraine, to justify their stance.
“At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” the leaders said. “We will vote to table Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate the chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”
Among House Republicans, Greene’s campaign has attracted little interest, as only two of her colleagues – Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona – have expressed their support of the motion.
Although the effort will almost certainly fail, Greene can still force a vote on her motion to vacate. Current House rules stipulate that a single member of the chamber may “offer a privileged resolution declaring the Office of Speaker vacant”. Greene introduced such a resolution in March, but she stopped short of calling for a vote on the matter.
Greene plans to move forward with requesting a vote on the motion, which will force the House to take up the matter within two legislative days.
Before voting on removing the speaker, one of Johnson’s allies is expected to introduce a motion to table the proposal. When then speaker Kevin McCarthy was facing the threat of removal in October, his allies tried the same tactic, but the motion to table failed in a vote of 208 to 218.
This time around, the House will almost certainly be able to pass a motion to table Greene’s resolution. With House Democratic leadership signaling that they will support the motion to table and only two Republican colleagues joining Greene’s cause, she remains hundreds of votes short of the majority that she will need to remove the speaker. (However, Democrats are not expected to unanimously back the motion to table, as some have signaled they will oppose it or vote “present”.)
Johnson himself has appeared largely unbothered by Greene’s threats, criticizing her motion as “wrong for the Republican conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country”. At a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson insisted that he remained laser-focused on advancing House Republicans’ legislative priorities.
“I have to do my job. We have to do what we believe to be the right thing,” Johnson said. “We need people who are serious about the job here to continue to do that job and get it done.”
If Johnson were ousted, he would become only the second House speaker in US history to be formally removed from the position – and yet he would also be the second speaker removed in less than a year. In October, a small group of Republicans joined Democrats in ousting McCarthy, making him the first House speaker to ever endure that humiliation.
McCarthy’s departure set off weeks of chaos in the House, as Republicans repeatedly failed in their efforts to choose a new speaker. The House remained at a complete standstill for three weeks, unable to conduct any official business, until Johnson (the conference’s fourth speaker nominee) won election.
Johnson has often referenced that embarrassing episode in recent weeks, as he has attempted to dissuade Republicans from joining Greene’s campaign.
“We saw what happened with the motion to vacate the last time,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “Congress was closed for three weeks. No one can afford for that to happen.”
And I'll resist crowing about how this could signal continued erosion of the assumed power of the Klown Kar Kauscus, because even though this may be the classic over-reach, it could take a long time for this thing to crumble and fall.
Far-right congresswoman has spearheaded effort to oust fellow Republican as speaker but motion to vacate widely expected to fail
The House is expected to vote this week on a motion to remove Republican Mike Johnson as speaker, but the effort, spearheaded by hard-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, faces virtually no chance of success.
Greene announced on Wednesday that she would move forward with forcing a vote on Johnson’s removal this week, following through on a threat she first issued in late March. Greene has consistently attacked Johnson for advancing bills that have attracted widespread bipartisan support, such as the government spending proposal approved in March and the foreign aid package signed into law last month.
As she called for Johnson’s removal, Greene accused the speaker of abandoning his Republican principles in favor of Democratic priorities, such as Ukraine funding.
There's that new oxymoron again: "Republican principles"
“Mike Johnson is giving [Democrats] everything they want,” Greene said Wednesday. “I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may. And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate.”
But Greene’s proposal is widely expected to fail, as House Democratic leaders indicated last week that they would vote to table, or kill, the motion to vacate the chair. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the three leaders cited the passage of the foreign aid package, which included nearly $61bn in funding for Ukraine, to justify their stance.
“At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” the leaders said. “We will vote to table Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate the chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”
Among House Republicans, Greene’s campaign has attracted little interest, as only two of her colleagues – Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona – have expressed their support of the motion.
Although the effort will almost certainly fail, Greene can still force a vote on her motion to vacate. Current House rules stipulate that a single member of the chamber may “offer a privileged resolution declaring the Office of Speaker vacant”. Greene introduced such a resolution in March, but she stopped short of calling for a vote on the matter.
Greene plans to move forward with requesting a vote on the motion, which will force the House to take up the matter within two legislative days.
Before voting on removing the speaker, one of Johnson’s allies is expected to introduce a motion to table the proposal. When then speaker Kevin McCarthy was facing the threat of removal in October, his allies tried the same tactic, but the motion to table failed in a vote of 208 to 218.
This time around, the House will almost certainly be able to pass a motion to table Greene’s resolution. With House Democratic leadership signaling that they will support the motion to table and only two Republican colleagues joining Greene’s cause, she remains hundreds of votes short of the majority that she will need to remove the speaker. (However, Democrats are not expected to unanimously back the motion to table, as some have signaled they will oppose it or vote “present”.)
Johnson himself has appeared largely unbothered by Greene’s threats, criticizing her motion as “wrong for the Republican conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country”. At a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson insisted that he remained laser-focused on advancing House Republicans’ legislative priorities.
“I have to do my job. We have to do what we believe to be the right thing,” Johnson said. “We need people who are serious about the job here to continue to do that job and get it done.”
If Johnson were ousted, he would become only the second House speaker in US history to be formally removed from the position – and yet he would also be the second speaker removed in less than a year. In October, a small group of Republicans joined Democrats in ousting McCarthy, making him the first House speaker to ever endure that humiliation.
McCarthy’s departure set off weeks of chaos in the House, as Republicans repeatedly failed in their efforts to choose a new speaker. The House remained at a complete standstill for three weeks, unable to conduct any official business, until Johnson (the conference’s fourth speaker nominee) won election.
Johnson has often referenced that embarrassing episode in recent weeks, as he has attempted to dissuade Republicans from joining Greene’s campaign.
“We saw what happened with the motion to vacate the last time,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “Congress was closed for three weeks. No one can afford for that to happen.”
May 3, 2024
And Another'n
But this is Texas we're talking about, and there's nothing that says they're not in cahoots with a DOJ that's still pretty well peppered with MAGA dicks who feel the need to take down a brown-skinned Democrat who hangs with a Muslim-sounding bunch like The Azerbaijan Caucus - whatever the fuck that is - and blah blah blah.
I may be paranoid,
but that don't mean
nobody's out to get me.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) addressed an expected indictment following reports the Justice Department is preparing charges against him, saying he is “innocent of these allegations” and still plans to seek reelection.
The Justice Department searched Cuellar’s home in January 2022 as part of an investigation into Azerbaijan.
Cuellar, a co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, said at the time he was not the target of the investigation.
In his Friday statement, Cuellar did not address any specific pending charges but suggested he sought out legal advice on what would appear to be the subject of the allegations and also references his wife’s professional background.
“Before I took any action, I proactively sought legal advice from the House Ethics Committee, who gave me more than one written opinion, along with an additional opinion from a national law firm. The actions I took in Congress were consistent with the actions of many of my colleagues and in the interest of the American people,” Cuellar wrote in a statement issued through his campaign.
“Imelda and I have been married for 32 years. On top of being an amazing wife and mother, she’s an accomplished businesswoman with two degrees. She spent her career working with banking, tax, and consulting. The allegation that she is anything but qualified and hard working is both wrong and offensive.”
Cuellar also said he tried to meet with prosecutors “to explain the facts and they refused to discuss the case with us or to hear our side.”
The Hill has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
Cuellar, a moderate Democrat from a district along the U.S.-Mexico border, narrowly defeated primary challenger Jessica Cisneros.
“Let me be clear, I’m running for re-election and will win this November,” Cuellar said.
Apr 24, 2024
Today's Ryan
You don't have to put the politician on the payroll. In fact, you don't want to do that because the risk outweighs the payoff.
You can pay lobbying firms to nag the congress critters, but that can get crazy stupid expensive.
So what you do is go with a social media campaign, aimed at getting a politician's constituents to pressure the politician for you.
(We're probably seeing a version of that at work with the Gaza protests, BTW)
Apr 17, 2024
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