#gaetz resigns

[herinfluencerdeer]

REPUBLICANS TO HUDDLE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS TO ELECT MCCONNELL'S SUCCESSOR WEDNESDAY

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[latestnews-now]

Matt Gaetz has withdrawn as Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, ending a controversial nomination process that rocked Washington. Discover the details behind his decision, the Senate’s reaction, and what it means for Trump’s administration. Don’t miss out – subscribe for more breaking news!

[socialistexan]

We all knew Gaetz was a decoy pick after about, say, 5 minutes of his nomination.

This served 3 different purposes:

Make Trump's other absurd picks like Musk, Dr. Oz, Gabbard, McMahon, and both Fox News hosts seem more palpable and sane when they absolutely are not

Give Republican Senators cover for voting for all of those picks and Trump's entire agenda, they can claim they aren't a rubber stamp to Trump's agenda because they said no to 1 single nominee

It gave Gaetz cover for resigning from Congress just days before the report about his predatory misconduct with minor girls was released and allowed Mike Johnson to squash it and suppress it from public view

[ralfmaximus]

Kevin McCarthy's surprise resignation today fucks Republicans in a number of fascinating ways:

he was, by far, one of their best fund raisers, with all the best connections to powerful donors

without those connections, GOP is gonna have a hard time raising money

with George Santos gone, their House majority is down to two (2) members, which is even slimmer than the four (4) they had before

due to House rules, neither position can be filled without a special election

which will probably take place not later than mid-2024

then once somebody wins that election (probably another Republican, because McCarthy's district bleeds red) they have to get sworn in

so count on three to five months with BOTH seats unfilled

which means if you thought things suuuuucked for the Republicans in 2023, buckle up buttercup

OH and also: Margerie Taylor Green is getting shat upon today by all her MAGA pals "for driving Kevin away" because it's mostly her (and Matt Gaetz) fault he lost the leadership role. And yeah, that's fair.

[oldbaton]

matt gaetz will be confirmed despite what people are saying but he has formally resigned from his seat in the house in preparation for being AG but can you imagine if the senate didnt confirm him and he lost his house seat for nothing

[follow-up-news]

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday accusing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of failing to fulfill his constitutional obligation to call special elections for two seats in the state House and Senate. The seats in question were vacated in November by state Rep. Joel Rudman and state Sen. Randy Fine, who resigned to run for two congressional seats that opened up when President-elect Donald Trump named U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz as Cabinet picks. Shortly after Gaetz and Waltz resigned, DeSantis called for special congressional elections with a Jan. 28 primary and an April 1 general. He has yet to set elections for the state-level openings, however. “I don’t understand why the governor resists calling special elections in a timely manner. From Jeb Bush to Rick Scott, past governors moved quickly to ensure the people retained their voice in government. DeSantis’s refusal to do so is both troubling and illegal,” said Nicholas Warren, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Florida.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 23, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Dec 24, 2024

Today the House Ethics Committee released its report on its investigation of widely reported allegations that while in office, former representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) had engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate videos on the House floor, misused state records, diverted campaign funds for his own use, and accepted a bribe or an impermissible gift.

The report says that the committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had, in fact, “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him”; “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl”; “used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions”; “accepted gifts…in excess of permissible amounts”; arranged official help for one of his sexual partners, whom he falsely identified to the State Department as a constituent, in getting a passport; tried to obstruct the committee’s investigation; and “acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.”

The committee concluded that “there was substantial evidence that Representative 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.”

It “did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Representative Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute. Although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel.”

Gaetz is a staunch ally of President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to put Gaetz in charge of the Justice Department. That appointment would have him responsible for law enforcement across the United States. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tried hard to keep the report hidden once Trump had tapped Gaetz for attorney general, saying he “strongly request[ed] that the Ethics Committee not issue the report.”

The Ethics Committee at first deadlocked over releasing it, but Andrew Solender of Axios reported today that two Republicans on the committee, Representative Dave Joyce (R-OH) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), switched their votes to join the Democrats supporting the release of the report.

Ethics Committee chair Michael Guest (R-MS) and Representatives Michelle Fischbach (R-MN) and John Rutherford (R-FL) all opposed releasing the report, saying that they lost jurisdiction after Gaetz resigned, which he did when Trump announced his intention of putting him in the office of attorney general. In their comments in the report, they said they “do not challenge the Committee’s findings” but object to their disclosure.

Republican Party leaders were willing to put a man their own committee says likely violated state and federal laws into the position of the nation’s highest law enforcement officer. That scenario reflects the extraordinary danger of a country in which one party’s supporters see themselves as the country’s only legitimate governing party.

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon’s team worried that the Republican Party would hemorrhage voters in the upcoming midterm elections. That spring, Nixon announced that rather than ending the Vietnam War, he had sent ground troops into Vietnam’s neighbor Cambodia. In the protests that followed, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd at Kent State University, killing four protesters. Nixon’s clumsy suggestion that the protesters were responsible for the shooting began to turn middle-class white Americans, his key demographic, against him.

So Nixon’s advisors turned to a strategy they called “positive polarization.” They believed that dividing the country was a positive development because it stoked the anger they needed to get their voters to turn out. They deliberately turned against what they called “the media, the left, [and] the liberal academic community,” drawing voters to Nixon by accusing their opponents of being lazy, dangerous, and anti-American.

This polarization became a key technique of the Republican Party in the Reagan years, when talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh began to fill the airwaves with attacks on “feminazis,” liberals, and Black Americans who they claimed were trying to impose socialism on America. By 1990, a Republican group associated with then-representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) compiled a list of words for Republican candidates to use when talking about Democrats. They included “decay,” “sick,” “greed,” “corruption, “radical,” and “traitor.” In contrast, candidates were encouraged to refer to Republicans using words like “opportunity,” “courage,” “principle(d),” “caring,” and “peace.”

Over the past thirty years, Republicans appear to have come to believe that nothing is more important than making sure Republicans control the government. Less competition has given rise to states like Florida that are essentially controlled by the Republicans. This, in turn, means there is very little oversight of the party’s lawmakers, making obviously problematic candidates able to survive far longer than they would if there were opposition to highlight poor behavior.

It also means that party members appear willing to overlook deeply problematic behavior in their own lawmakers, who come to feel immune, while attacking Democrats for what Republicans claim is the same behavior. Notably, in February of this year, in a closed hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Gaetz badgered President Biden’s son Hunter over his drug use. Hunter Biden responded that he had been “absolutely transparent” about his drug use and asked: “What does that have to do with whether or not you're going to go forward with an impeachment of my father other than to simply try to embarrass me?”

The answer is that while the drug use of private citizen Hunter Biden did not affect the U.S. government, the drug use of congressmember Matt Gaetz did. In a healthy political system, political opposition would have called out his behavior long before he was tapped to become one of the most important figures in the government.

Crucially, in such a system, state law enforcement would have pursued Gaetz, and his own party would have dropped him like a hot potato long before it had to face commentary like that of progressive journalist Brian Tyler Cohen, who today wrote: “Congratulations to Mike Johnson for trying to pressure the House Ethics Committee into burying a report that found the then-nominee for attorney general had engaged in sexual activity with a minor. Party of Family Values, am I right?”

The Republicans’ determination to hold on to the government at all costs showed in a different story that broke this weekend. Representative Kay Granger (R-TX) has been absent from Congress since midsummer. On Sunday, Carlos Turcios of the Dallas Express reported that he found the 81-year-old representative in a memory care and assisted living home. In the months since she went missing, her staff continued to submit material to the Congressional Record, making it look like she was still active.

Chad Pergram of the Fox News Channel reported that a senior Republican source explained why Granger retained her seat despite her incapacity. Referring to what Pergram called “the paper-thin [Republican] House majority,” the source said: “Frankly, we needed the numbers.”

Granger’s condition has reignited the national conversation about the age and capacity of our lawmakers, an issue very much on the table for the 78-year-old president-elect, whose own behavior has been erratic for a while now.

On Sunday, Trump spoke at Turning Point’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, where, as Aaron Rupar of Public Notice recorded, he entered as if he were at a professional wrestling event. He proceeded to deliver a speech much like his campaign speeches.

It had an important new element in it, though, that he had pioneered on social media the night before. He claimed that Panama is not treating the U.S. well, and threatened that he will “demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly, and without question.” On Sunday he posted on social media that he wants Greenland too. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, responded that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be. Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede of Greenland said: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

To my knowledge, Trump never mentioned taking the Panama Canal or Greenland during the campaign, and such dramatic action will likely undermine the principle that countries can’t just take over weaker neighbors. This principle is central to the United Nations, which holds that territorial integrity and sovereignty are “sacrosanct” and that members “shall refrain…from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” David Sanger and Lisa Friedman of the New York Times note that Trump’s aggression “reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.”

In a healthy political system, pronouncements from an elderly president-elect that could upend 80 years of foreign policy would spark significant discussion from all quarters.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[luimnigh]

I remember Trump's first term being regularly punctuated by resignations of cabinet members, to the point where they began to be measured in Mooches, aka 11 days, after Anthony Scaramucci, the White House Communications Director, who only lasted that amount of time.

Matt Gaetz has lasted Negative 5.45 Mooches:

Also he resigned from Congress already so he's gone entirely.

[liberalsarecool]

Republican voters do not have serious thoughts about the issues. It's all moving goal posts.

Case in point: the Tea Party was established because the deficit was their obsession. Obama was their target. The racism was obvious.

But when Trump added over $8 trillion to the deficit, that same deficit-obsessed Tea Party did not care anymore. This issue vanished.

Same with sex trafficking. Thousands of priests/youth minsters/cops are indicted/arrested all the time for rape/possession of child porn/molestation, yet the RW echo chamber will distract with drag queens and transphobia groomer messaging.

Look at Matt Gaetz! He has to resign for sex trafficking the day after Trump picked him for Attorney General. !!!. It's obscenely perverse.

[soberscientistlife]

If ignorance is bliss, I sure do know a lot of happy people. One of my Trumpy friends just assured me that the only reason Matt Gaetz resigned his House seat is because that’s what you have to do when the president nominates you for something. I asked him about the Ethics Committee report and he proclaimed it “bullshit”.

[darkmaga-returns]

Government bureaucrats are abandoning ship ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, anticipating either their termination or an intolerable upending of the status quo at their agencies.

Trump has vowed to thoroughly overhaul the executive branch agencies, in part through his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The duo have called for drastically reducing the size of the government bureaucracy by encouraging voluntary departures through the end of remote work and the relocation of key agencies out of the D.C. area.

Thus far, it seems to be Trump’s appointees, and the prospect of working under them, that is doing much of the heavy lifting in driving out longtime agency employees. Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for instance, caused such an uproar within the Department of Justice over the prospect of his confirmation as attorney general that it prompted a litany of headlines about “anxiety” within the DOJ and potential mass retirements.

Though Gaetz withdrew his nomination, the phenomenon appears to go beyond the Florida lawmaker and high profile officials have resigned from other agencies ahead of their impending replacement. Trump’s backup pick of ex-Florida AG Pam Bondi appears to have DOJ officials quaking in their boots.

Some key government officials, including those whose posts are not necessarily tied to political appointments, have taken it upon themselves to exit government service in light of the initiative and Trump’s return. […]

[schraubd]

Will Matt Gaetz Finally Cause the Senate GOP To Stand Up To Trump? My Money's On No!

I really thought I'd laid the bar on the floor, but somehow Donald Trump has already burrowed under it by announcing (former*) Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as his pick for attorney general. I had the pleasure of sharing this news with several of my law school colleagues, where it literally provoked a laugh-out-loud howl of incredulity. It wasn't just my people though. Senate Republicans also seem rather blindsided by the pick: The selection of Mr. Gaetz blindsided many of Mr. Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill. The announcement was met with immediate and unvarnished skepticism by Republicans in the Senate who will vote on his nomination. Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she was “shocked” by the pick — and predicted a difficult confirmation process. [....] Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, when asked about Mr. Gaetz’s selection, said, “I don’t know the man other than his public persona.” Mr. Cornyn said he could not comment on the chances that Mr. Gaetz, or Tulsi Gabbard, Mr. Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, would be confirmed: “I don’t know — we’ll find out.” “He’s got his work cut out for him,” Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, said as other senators dodged questions from reporters. Representative Max Miller, Republican of Ohio, told reporters that many members of the G.O.P. conference were shocked at the choice of Mr. Gaetz for attorney general, but mostly thrilled at the prospect that he might no longer be a member of the chamber. The House, Mr. Miller added, would be a more functional place without Mr. Gaetz. He predicted a bruising confirmation fight, adding that if the process revealed evidence to corroborate the allegations of sex trafficking against Mr. Gaetz, he would not be surprised if the House moved to expel him, as it did with Representative George Santos. Mr. Santos lost his seat after the Ethics Committee documented violations of the chamber’s rules and evidence of extensive campaign fraud.   But things aren't all bad. You'll never guessed who raced ahead of the pack to greet Trump's failson pick with open arms: One of the few lawmakers to offer a positive assessment was a staunch Trump ally, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who called Mr. Gaetz “smart” and “clever” but predicted tough confirmation hearings. So, how long will it take for the Senate GOP caucus to fall in line? I'm guessing it'll happen before the first confirmation hearing. (That is, if we have confirmation hearings). Oh, and speaking of organizations that have put their dignity in a lockbox, we did finally learn what bridge is too far for the ADL, which blistered the Gaetz selection because of his "long history of trafficking in antisemitism," including "defending the Great Replacement Theory." How he's distinguished from the ADL's glowingly-praised Elise Stefanik, who also promoted Great Replacement Theory, was left unsaid. * Gaetz hastily resigned his seat following the announcement, also getting ahead of a planned House Ethics Committee report that was set to issue findings on Gaetz's myriad, er, "controversies" -- including allegations of sex trafficking minors. Score one for QAnon! via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/WqtsjKg

[grumpycakes]

Speaker of the House Vote 2025 SHORT VERSION

Yes I swear this is the short version I'm sorry True TLDR Johnson wins but 8 people showed off they could really fuck the party over if they wanted

**JUMP TO 'THE VOTE' IF NO EXPLANATION OF PROCESS IS NEEDED**

U.S. Congress has two groups. Senate (2 reps per state) & the House of Representatives (certain amount of reps by population of state - not exactly balanced as there are caps)

Every two years there are elections for new Senators and Reps (your state rules and terms may vary). Every two years there's a "new" group of Senators and or Reps

Per the constitution - when there is a "new" group of Reps/Senators they have to elect (or reelect) the Speaker of their group (the lead person)

Nothing can happen, not even the elected members getting sworn in as congressmen, until the groups have a leader

Both groups could easily have issues electing a leader but

The Senate has not had much issue

The House in 2023 had the absolute disaster of 15 rounds of voting (the most ever done to approve the speaker)

Many of the reps that had issues were reported to be dissatisfied with the current guy, Mike Johnson,

Johnson was elected to replace McCarthy (guy who had to go through 15 votes) when Gaetz (reelected but not here as he resigned to avoid being outed as a criminal from an internal investigation that was released anyway) moved to revote and he got booted.

Johnson has publicly stated he would not negotiate with far right Republican Representatives

Voting is simple and complicated

There should be 435 members (as of now - there have been less, there could be more if we approve states having more reps)

You only need more than half the votes - even just by ONE VOTE

218 is the current amount of votes necessary to win

More than 217 members of a party is considered the Majority

If people don't vote, aren't there, or vote "Present" the overall number to get elected can drop (2 people not voting/present drop the overall needed by 1)

If the needed drops low enough and the opposing party is all voting for their leader, the other party could win (career suicide and unhelpful to what you want to get done)

The current makeup is 219 Repuplicans and 215 Democrats (we are one short of 435 cause of that Gaetz asshole)

THE VOTE

Unless specified, Republicans voted for Mike Johnson. All Democrats voted for Hakeem Jeffries.

Biggs of Arizona - Did not respond when called

Cloud - Did not respond when called

Clyde - Did not respond when called

Gosar - Did not respond when called

Harris of Maryland - Did not respond when Called

Massey - Voted for Tom Emmer (Republican Whip) **Had outright said he would not vote for Johnson

Norman - Voted for Jim Jordan *This would ensure Johnson lost*

Self - Voted for Byron Donalds

Walz - Did not respond when called

HAD THIS NOT CHANGED - - 6 Not responding would drop the needed votes to 215 - Dems would win for Jeffries with 215 and Johnson at 210.

They call names at the end of those who did not initially vote to ensure the person wasn't just in the bathroom or something.

ALL SIX REPUBLICANS WHO DID NOT RESPOND switched their votes to Johnson when called again (although it sounded like Gosar and Clyde weren't going to)

BECAUSE the six changed their votes to Johnson

The winning number is still 218

neither Jeffries (215 votes) nor Johnson (216 votes) can win

If nothing changes, a second round of voting would have to happen

After the call and recall rounds, they count the votes - aka give people time to come up and ask the talliers to change their vote if they had "voted in error". This means you see people who voted against the leader get swarmed and talked to by other Representatives (Either threatening or offering deals to get the dissenting Rep to switch their vote.)

Massey is unmoved

Norman and Self however talk with Johnson and other reps and ALL LEAVE THE ROOM for some time.

They return to the room, and although all votes are technically in, no one has announced the end of voting or given a final tally.

They allow Norman and Self to change their votes to Johnson

Johnson wins with 218 Votes

Weirdness

It has been alleged that the people who didn't intially vote were doing so on purpose to show they have power

Norman and Self definitely got SOMETHING out of whatever meeting they had - though we do not know what

Seems they learned from 2023 and didn't call the vote over on purpose to try and keep it to one round of voting

TECHNICALLY got the vote in the first round of voting but don't let the Republicans fool you, they still have massive issues with the zealous outliers of their group

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Hafiz Rashid at TNR (11.18.2024):

Donald Trump and his allies have characterized the 2024 election as an overwhelming victory—and a mandate for shock politics, mass deportations, and the transformation of the country’s foreign and domestic policy. There’s just one problem: They didn’t actually win by much.  CNN’s Harry Enten reports that Trump is now under 50 percent for the popular vote, and his margin is the forty-fourth worst out of 51 presidential elections since 1824. Four Democrats won Senate seats in states that Trump won (Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada), compared to zero in the 2016 and 2020 elections. And while Republicans held onto their House majority, if results hold, their 221–214 margin will be the smallest majority in the 50-state era.  Trump’s appointments are not going to help with the House’s Republican majority, with many of Trump’s choices being elected GOP members. These include Representatives Elise Stefanik as his U.N. ambassador, Mike Waltz as his national security adviser, and Matt Gaetz (who has already resigned) as his attorney general, among others. 

While Donald Trump won the popular vote narrowly and got a trifecta, he does not have a “mandate”, since he has a threadbare House majority and is set to finish with a popular vote plurality win.

When Trump won the first time with a trifecta, he falsely claimed that he had a mandate, but in reality, he lost the popular vote that election.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Bramhall

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 3, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 04, 2025

Today a new Congress, the 119th, came into session. As Annie Karni of the New York Times noted, Americans had a rare view into the floor action of the House because the party in control sets the rules for what parts of the House floor viewers can see. Without a speaker, there is no party in charge to set the rules, so the C-SPAN cameras recording the day could move as their operators wished.

Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. All eyes were on the House, where Republicans will hold 219 seats. Initially, though, that number will be 218: The seat to which Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was elected will be empty since he resigned from the previous Congress and, after the House Ethics Committee released a report saying there was “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had broken state and federal laws, apparently decided to focus on his new media show rather than return to the House. When the clerk announced that Gaetz would not take a seat in the 119th Congress, applause broke out.

The Democrats hold 215 seats, and everyone showed up to opening day, including Dwight Evans (D-PA), who has been absent since suffering a stroke last May, and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who fell and broke her hip on a congressional trip to Luxembourg in mid-December. Scott MacFarlane reported that Pelosi, who received a hip replacement at the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, entered the chamber smiling. C-SPAN reported that she had replaced her trademark high heels with flats.

Notably, there are fewer women in the 119th Congress than in the previous one, and there will be no women chairing committees in the Republican-dominated House.

The first problem for the Republicans to solve was the election of a House speaker. It took 15 ballots to elect Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) when the Republicans took control of the House in 2023, and McCarthy had made so many concessions to the far right that they were able to remove him from office just ten months later, the first time in history that a party removed its own speaker in the middle of a session. Then they cycled through four candidates and four votes before settling on backbencher Mike Johnson (R-LA) for speaker. But while Johnson’s evangelical Christianity and support for Trump’s Big Lie about having won the 2020 presidential election indicated he was an extremist, Johnson immediately infuriated the far-right wing of the Republican Party by agreeing to fund the government without incorporating their extreme demands.

Far-right members want to use the need to fund government operations as leverage to get what they want. In a memo before today’s vote, they claimed that Trump and the Republicans hold a “historic mandate,” although in fact Trump won less than 50% of the vote in one of the smallest margins in U.S. history. They have said publicly they would not vote for Johnson as speaker again, likely to extract concessions that give them more power, but Johnson vowed not to make any concessions to them.

Trump was mad at Johnson for backing the passage just before Christmas of a continuing resolution to fund the government without getting rid of the debt ceiling as Trump demanded. But, likely recognizing that the House needs to be organized before it can count the electoral votes that will make him president, Trump endorsed Johnson on social media and worked the phones to support him before today’s vote.

In the first ballot today, all 215 Democrats voted for Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), with him and former House speaker Pelosi sharing a hug when she voted for him. A number of Republicans declined to vote initially, then 216 voted for Johnson while three others voted for someone else, leaving Johnson two votes short of the 218 he needed to be elected.

It was a dramatic rejection not only of Johnson, but also of Trump, who had posted that “[a] win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party, and yet another acknowledgment of our 129 year most consequential Presidential Election!!—A BIG AFFIRMATION, INDEED. MAGA!” But his candidate still could not get the votes he needed from within his own party to run the House.

Scenes like this explain why I remain astonished by the persistence of the narrative that the Democrats are divided while the Republicans are in lockstep.

After the initial vote but before it was gaveled to a close, Johnson went into his office with eight members of the far-right Freedom Caucus, while Trump and incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles called the holdouts. When they emerged, two of the members who had voted for people other than Johnson switched their vote to him, giving him the votes he needed to become the speaker of the 119th Congress. One of the holdouts, Ralph Norman (R-SC) was the man who urged Trump to declare “Marshall Law” on January 17, 2021, to keep President-elect Joe Biden from taking over the presidency.

As soon as they had voted for Johnson, eleven far-right representatives sent a letter to their colleagues saying they had voted for Johnson because they wanted to make sure they didn’t mess up the January 6 counting of Trump’s electoral votes. But they warned that if Johnson didn’t reduce the deficit by enacting “real” spending cuts, stop working with Democrats, and only entertain measures supported by a majority of Republicans, they would challenge his speakership.

For his part, Democratic leader Jeffries said to the House: “Our position is that it is not acceptable to cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut veterans' benefits, or cut nutritional assistance from children and families in order to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations.”

So Johnson is speaker again, but he’s already caught between the MAGAs demanding significant budget cuts and the Democrats’ promise to call attention to every one of those cuts. And popular anger at billionaires seems to be increasing daily: today Pulitzer-Prize-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes left the Washington Post after her editor killed a cartoon criticizing the tech and media leaders who have been currying favor with Trump. “[E]ditorial cartoonists are vital for civic debate,” she wrote, and after watching colleagues overseas “risk their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives to…hold their countries’ leaders accountable,” she chose to leave so she could continue to speak truth to power.

This afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump to report in person or virtually for sentencing in the election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies related to payments he made to film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public with the story of their sexual encounter before the 2016 election. Trump had tried to get the case dismissed because he had been elected president. His spokesperson called the sentencing order a “witch hunt.”

Merchan indicated he would not sentence Trump to serve time in jail.

Meanwhile, at the White House today, President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to five Korean War veterans who may have been denied the nation’s highest award for military valor because of their race or ethnicity, and upgraded awards of the Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor for two veterans of the Vietnam War. Specialist Fourth Class Kenneth J. David was the only one of the men who could receive the honor personally. Biden also awarded fourteen individuals with the National Medal of Science and nine people and two organizations with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He also awarded the Medal of Valor to eight public safety officers for acting above and beyond the call of duty. The awards went to officers who ran toward gunfire to save children during the Nashville Covenant School shooting, swam through freezing water to save a drowning woman, and rushed into burning buildings to rescue women and children.

Biden honored the military personnel for their bravery, and the scientists for their “discoveries that are helping us meet the climate crisis, treat crippling disease, create lifesaving vaccines, pioneer the way we communicate, and significantly improve our understanding of the universe and our place within it.” But it was his remarks about the eight public safety officers awarded the Medal of Valor for acting above and beyond the call of duty that stood out.

He called in the press and said: “Folks, I wanted you to come in because…I think it’s very important that the public see them and know who they are…. There’s a lot fewer empty chairs around the kitchen table and dining room table because of what these guys did.” Biden thanked their families, “because if you’re the spouse of a firefighter or a police officer, you always worry about that phone call,” and told the award recipients: “You’re the best America has to offer.”

Yesterday, Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, given to those “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” to twenty Americans including former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who served on the January 6 committee. Today, Trump attacked Cheney and others who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, as “dishonest Thugs.”

Cheney responded: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[phoenixfeathersinfall]

The cabinet picks are starting to come out...

Susie Wiles for Chief of Staff

Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense

Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence.

Marco Rubio for Secretary of State.

Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. (He has resigned from Congress.)

Kristi Noem for Secretary of Department of Homeland Security.

Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel.

Steve Witkoff for Special Envoy to the Middle East

Elise Stefanik for ambassador to the UN

Lee Zeldin for EPA administrator

John Ratcliffe for CIA director

Bill McGinley for White House Counsel

Tom Homan for border czar

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading up a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency.

USA Tumblrinas...the clown car is filling up and we can hear the squeaking shoes and honking noses of these largely incompetent and dangerous folks already. But most of them are, in fact, elected officials, which means they represent us. Start keeping track of them as you're able; you can tell them NO.

And remember: there is hope. Take a look at this video. Lawrence Tribe, one of the most prominent legal scholars in the country reminds us that the guard rails are not gone. That civil society has a very important function as we begin these uncertain days. That it's time to get involved.