#Congressional Republicans

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[thenewdemocratus]

New York Daily News: S.E. Cupp: 'State of The Union a Window Into Obama's Mind'

Source:New York Daily News What I don’t think that S.E. Cupp gets that is of course President Obama was taking a victory lap last night. Which is his right, because the economy is finally moving and moving well. No longer are we talking about one-percent economic growth and creating somewhere around a hundred-thousand jobs per month, with unemployment still well over seven-percent. We are seeing…

[govtshutdown]

Even if they pass something, there is no way the Senate will rubber stamp whatever they send them. Speaker McCarthy keeps on operating under the belief that the House is the only thing in government that matters.

[hezigler]

Watch "Jen Psaki DUNKS On MAGA Clowns" on YouTube

Republican hypocrisy at its finest on display.

[walterrobles]

President Joe Biden fired the opening shot in his budget negotiations with congressional Republicans on Thursday, saying he's ready to sit down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and go through their spending plans line by line.

[eideard]

Adventures in Congress -- Republican Style of governing

Adventures in Congress — Republican Style of governing

How it ended up Some of the bravado Part of the process!

[deadpresidents]

Just to point out that while George Santos was finally expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives after being charged with 23 felony crimes, committing astounding levels of fraud, and fabricating absolutely stupid amounts of his background, it still required the heavy-lifting of Democratic members to close the deal, and a majority of Republicans voted to allow him to remain.

House Speaker Mike Johnson -- who was unanimously elected as the Republican leader of the House by GOP members in October -- continued to demonstrate his moral leadership by voting to let Santos hold on to his seat in Congress.

[aunti-christ-ine]

[contemplatingoutlander]

As always, Jennifer Rubin provides some excellent suggestions about how Biden and the Democrats can curb the far-right House GQP.

The rules package that House Republicans passed Monday night provides an indication of just how much damage House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has wrought in capitulating to the most extreme members of his caucus. The good news is that the Biden administration can thwart McCarthy’s schemes.

For starters, the House GOP is spoiling for a fight on the debt limit. The rules package eliminates a long-existing parliamentary rule that automatically raised the debt ceiling whenever the House passed a budget. This will empower the House to hold the economy hostage to extract dangerous cuts to national security and crippling reductions in entitlements.

But the White House can defuse the extortionists’ bomb before it is detonated. It should plainly state that the president has the power to ensure Congress does not sabotage the full faith and credit of the United States.

Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution states that Congress has the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts.” It further states that Congress has the power to borrow “on the credit” of the United States. Plainly, the Founding Fathers did not envision lawmakers deliberately refusing payment of debts and destroying the credit of the United States.

But the 14th Amendment makes clear that this power does not include the power to trigger a default. As constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe succinctly tweeted, “The debt ceiling is a misnomer: it does nothing to cap spending but just creates an illusory threat to stiff our creditors.” That’s because “[Section] 4 of 14th Amendment forbids defaulting on the nation’s debts.”

In other words, the Constitution compels the government to honor its debts. The administration shouldn’t need congressional action to do that. [...] In short, the White House should seize the initiative to disarm Congress now, before a loaded gun is put to the nation’s head.

The GOP rules package also sets up a blatant violation of separation of powers that would undermine the fair and impartial administration of justice. It would do this by establishing a subcommittee on the “weaponization of the federal government,” which would be authorized to review ongoing criminal investigations.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance explains in a Substack post, this would “go far beyond the legitimate scope of oversight. Reviewing criminal cases while they’re in progress, which DOJ won’t permit...would overstep Congress’s bounds and violate the separation of powers.”

It’s no secret what the Republicans are up to. Vance writes: “This is little more than a mechanism for House Republicans to try to interfere with any investigations into Trump, or any other Republicans, like George Santos or Matt Gaetz, who may be the subject of non-January-6-related matters.” She adds that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who will likely lead the subcommittee, “will be able to issue subpoenas regarding the Hunter Biden investigation, which is being handled by a Trump-holdover U.S. Attorney in Delaware to try to embarrass President Joe Biden and argue that his Justice Department is giving favorable treatment to his son, which it clearly isn’t doing.”

[See more below the cut.]

The Justice Department has a well-established practice to prevent Congress from meddling in ongoing investigations and prosecutions. As the Justice Department explained in a letter to a congressional subcommittee in 2000, “Although Congress has a clearly legitimate interest in determining how the Department enforces statutes, Congressional inquiries during the pendency of a matter pose an inherent threat to the integrity of the Department’s law enforcement and litigation functions.” The letter continued, “Such inquiries inescapably create the risk that the public and the courts will perceive undue political and Congressional influence over law enforcement and litigation decisions. Such inquiries also often seek records and other information that our responsibilities for these matters preclude us from disclosing.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland should respond similarly to any MAGA overreach. [...] In sum, the administration can proactively short-circuit the proposed House rules. In doing so, it would reassure the markets and the American people. Biden should not miss this opportunity to make clear that McCarthy’s rules are the result of MAGA Republicans’ extortion and are as worthless as his speakership.

[emphasis added]

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[thenewdemocratus]

The Daily Beast: Lawrence Gelb: GOP Hates Barack Obama More Than a Nuclear Iran

The Daily Beast Even through Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is the strongest and most powerful Republican in Congress and that includes the Speaker of the House John Boehner, who outranks him in the U.S. Constitution, being a stronger leader than John Boehner is not much of an accomplishment. And even though Leader McConnell is effective at bringing Senate Republicans and Democrats together to…

[tomorrowusa]

It's time, once again, to choose a Republican Speaker of the House! 😳

It probably won't be George Santos. Like Donald Trump, he's ineligible because of criminal charges against him. Rep. Santos now faces 23 counts. He needs to work harder to catch up to Trump.

Read the updated indictment of Rep. George Santos

Another member of the House who many people think deserves to be indicted is Gym Jordan – one of the candidates for Speaker.

Former Ohio State University wrestlers say Jim Jordan betrayed them and shouldn't be House speaker

Jordan is a facilitator of sex abuse. Imagine the editorial cartoons of him as House Speaker.

It says a lot about the GOP that their least bad candidate for Speaker once called himself "David Duke without the baggage". Duke was once the "grand wizard" of the KKK.

House speaker contender Steve Scalise reportedly called himself ‘David Duke without the baggage’

We can help erase the slim majority which GOP legislative terrorists have in the House. Support the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

[thursdaymurderbub]

Excerpt from an interview with Melvyn Douglas in 1980 Toronto about his wife Helen Gahagan Douglas, taken from Conversations with Classic Film Stars: interviews from Hollywood's golden era (2016) by James Bawden and Ron Miller.

Then-Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas speaks at the Democratic National Convention in 1948. She once filibustered for days to name every Black man who had served in the war, to make sure they got listed in the Congressional Record.

[antiadvil]

you know what. fuck it. i'm running for speaker of the US house of representatives. my qualifications are that i'm loud and i have more people who like me than jim jordan

[bisexualalienss]

don’t get me started on how a scotus seat was literally stolen from obama and nothing happened. our democracy isn’t real lol and literally no one talks about it! it should of been a huge deal but there were no consequences

[deadpresidents]

With his speech today, Benjamin Netanyahu has now addressed a Joint Session of the United States Congress as many times as President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

Does anybody want to guess which party had majority control of the House of Representatives all four times that Netanyahu was invited to address Congress?

If the Republican Party wasn't so brainwashed by the Trump cult of personality they'd probably try to nominate Netanyahu for President.