Schumer to put Republicans between a rock and a hard place

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is planning a big change for the body this fall: actual legislative work. Until now, his focus primarily has been on confirming President Joe Biden’s nominees. When the Senate returns from celebrating Independence Day over the next three weeks, the focus will shift to legislative business—not just the must-pass spending bills to keep government open and other necessities, but some bipartisan legislation that should put Democrats on better footing for a tough 2024 battle ahead.

The election map next year is not favorable to Democrats. Schumer’s calculation in setting an ambitious agenda ahead of it seems two-fold: create an opportunity for a Democratic-majority Senate to bank key accomplishments to run on, and force Republicans to decide whether they should block other Republicans’ pet legislation. The strategy has another upside: showcasing just how much the Republican-led House is mired in carrying out Donald Trump’s revenge agenda of impeachment—and impeachment-expunging—nonsense.

Schumer told Politico that there are a “bunch of Republicans” who want to work with Democrats to get their stuff through. “Legislating in the Senate with the rules we have is not easy, right? But if you push ahead, we’re going to get some good things done.” That’s Schumer setting the challenge for Republicans on the filibuster. Either they can give their Republican colleagues actual achievements to run on, even though it also helps Democrats, or they can be like the House Freedom Caucus and shut everything down.

Regulating artificial intelligence is just one example of legislation Schumer is working on with Indiana Republican Sen. Todd Young and Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. Another is a bipartisan effort from the two Montanans, Democrat Jon Tester and Republican Steve Daines. It would open up financial institutions to marijuana-based businesses in states where it’s been legalized. That’s a great one for Schumer to push. Tester is up for reelection in 2024 in red Montana and his colleague Daines is in charge of Republican Senate campaigns for the cycle. That puts Daines in a tricky position.

Republicans are already arguing among themselves over another bill Schumer will bring up, a rail safety effort that Ohio Sens. Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Sherrod Brown have jointly worked on for the upcoming session. Brown is also up for reelection this cycle. The two teamed up after the catastrophic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The legislation is drawing criticism from other Republicans, including Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, part of Mitch McConnell’s leadership team. He says it’s too heavy on regulation.

Those bills are in addition to the legislation that will take up a good chunk of July and September, including the spending bills that absolutely must pass by the end of September to keep the government open. Expect the House/Senate divide to be dialed up to 10 by then. On top of that, the Senate must pass a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, where there’s a partisan fight over how many hours pilots must train, and a farm bill to reauthorize Department of Agriculture programs for another five years. That’s going to create another intra-Republican fight as the House tries to severely cut food assistance programs and the Senate Republicans try to get one of their top priority packages through the quagmire.

Getting all these major bills done may or may not happen more easily with a charm offensive to certain Republican senators from Schumer. They’re going to have to weigh a lot of factors: do they give Democrats accomplishments if it helps them, too? Do they allow a bunch of ambitious bipartisan bills to pass, knowing that it will make the House Republicans look even worse when they fail to act? Will they work on winning over non-extremist Republicans in that body to actually pass legislation? We’ll find out soon enough if those so-called moderate Republicans even exist in the first place.

Ultimately, Schumer’s ambitious bipartisan agenda will likely put Senate Republicans in the position of either embracing House Republicans and their revenge agenda or splintering away to pass legislation. The gridlock could also put the filibuster in the spotlight again if Republicans block their own bills. That could help make the case for filibuster reform in 2025 if Democrats keep the majority.

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Republican House 'moderates' talk tough ... anonymously

Republican House ‘moderates’ talk big, fail to step up

Posted on by Joan McCarter

The attempted impeachment of President Joe Biden is now a thing House Republicans will have to spend actual time on, thanks to Colorado wingnut Rep. Lauren Boebert. Whatever procedural moves leadership takes now to get the issue off the floor won’t matter because the Freedom Caucus and other hardliners have decided this is how they will hijack the House. That’s a big headache for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, one that the would-be moderates could exploit to the benefit of the country, if only they could be bothered.

Those so-called moderates are talking big about their few “accomplishments” thus far. For instance, last week they voted against some amendments to legislation intended to make it harder for the federal government to regulate stuff. It’s a dangerous and ridiculous bill that every single Republican voted for, but these guys are crowing to Politico about how they voted against Freedom Caucus amendments to it. “We were sending a signal,” one of them said, calling it their strategy to hold the MAGA wing “accountable” but not hurt leadership.

The lawmaker, who insisted on anonymity to discuss how tough they were, bragged about how they told Rep. Bob Good, a Virginia congressman who thinks the Republican-appointed FBI director should be impeached over the Trump classified documents case: “You want Good bills passed, [then] put another name on it.” So, so anonymously brave. They’re admitting that they don’t have a problem with the content of any Freedom Caucus bill, just the sponsor, with one exception: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said his votes against the amendments were policy-based. As for the rest of them? Their claims of moderation are about as valid as their claim on family values or being pro-life.

They disproved that again Wednesday when nearly all of them voted to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff for his role in Intelligence Committee investigations and the impeachments of Donald Trump. This group voted against the first censure vote last week because it came with a ridiculous $16 million fine. Once that was dropped, they were happy to pile on in this proxy vote for Trump. Because that’s what this is. They’re all still mad about both Trump impeachments, the Jan. 6 investigations conducted by House Democrats, and the ongoing investigations surrounding Trump. Schiff is their scapegoat.

There’s a lot these not-Freedom Caucus Republicans could do to force McCarthy to throw over the extremists. There’s a hell of a lot more of them. If they acted as a bloc, they could take over the House the same way 11 assholes did a few weeks ago, when they shut the House down with a procedural vote. Will they muster the courage?

Probably not, Main Street Caucus Chair Dusty Johnson of South Dakota says. “I’ve heard people talk about that tactic, you know, out of frustration,” he told Politico, but suggested it’s not likely. He said that, in his group,​ “people understand that the best way—the most productive way—to move forward is try to stick together.” In other words, seeking safety in numbers, cowering in fear while their feral colleagues take all of them down in a spiral of nonsense.

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McCarthy isn’t happy with Boebert’s impeachment shenanigans

Posted on by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was not a happy camper in the Republican conference meeting Wednesday morning, thanks to the latest antics of Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado’s contribution to the debasement of Congress. On Tuesday evening, Boeber introduced a privileged resolution to impeach President Joe Biden on the made-up charge that he violated his oath by not stopping illegal immigration. The charge isn’t important, it’s the mechanism that’s got McCarthy’s knickers twisted.

Under House rules, privileged resolutions bypass the regular process—and leadership’s ability to determine what goes to the floor—and have to be voted on within two legislative days. There are only two legislative days left this week before Congress heads out to celebrate July 4 for the next 19 days. So this eats up time and energy that the House can’t really afford, not that they were going to accomplish much of anything in these two days. It also exposes the whole Republican conference as a clown car, and McCarthy’s weak leadership for what it is.

Democrats said they would move to table the motion, which puts McCarthy in the position, again, of having to rely on Democrats for help, which only serves to piss off the Freedom Caucus maniacs and their allies more, which will lead to exactly what is happening now: escalation.

.@RepMTG says she will speak to McCarthy later today on her push to impeach Biden, others. She says she addressed the conference about impeachment telling them it’s “the right thing to do.” She plans to convert all her articles to privileged resolutions.

— Mica Soellner (@MicaSoellnerDC) June 21, 2023

Greene has a raft of impeachment resolutions, and if she makes them all privileged, there’s another two weeks of work eaten up. She’s mad that Boebert upstaged her on this one, calling Boebert a “copycat.”

At the same time, Rep. Adam Schiff’s stalker colleague, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Freedom Caucuser, is pushing a second privileged resolution to censure him. Luna has sponsored six resolutions so far this year. Five of them are about Schiff. The first privileged one failed last week when 20 Republicans joined with Democrats to table it.

Which leads to the question of just how orchestrated all this is. It doesn’t seem likely, but the Freedom Caucus might just be organized enough to be planning this in another effort to gum up the works in the House and just to harass McCarthy.

The week before last, 11 of them shut the House down by blocking a rule vote—the first time that had happened in 21 years—and refusing to agree to let it pass until McCarthy sufficiently appeased them by agreeing to renege on the debt ceiling deal he had negotiated with Biden. It’s hard to credit those people with enough organizational skills or procedural knowledge to look at what Boebert and Luna are doing as strategy, but stranger things have happened.

All of which McCarthy brought upon himself. For one thing, he’s amplified and encouraged the border hysteria. That’s despite a substantial decline in actual illegal border crossings in recent weeks. He greenlit bogus investigations of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to determine whether he should be impeached. There are at least four impeachment resolutions out there against Mayorkas, one of them from Greene. This latest from her and Boebert will likely encourage all these yahoos to make their resolutions privileged too.

Which is what got McCarthy worked up. “There was a discussion about regular order in January,” he reportedly said in Wednesday morning’s conference meeting. “And going through committee—but now we have members doing privileged motions without going through committee or even speaking with the conference.”

“What majority do we want to be?” he said. “Give it right back in 2 years or hold it for a decade and make real change. How are we going to censure Adam Schiff for abusing his position to lie and force an impeachment and then turn around and do it ourselves the next day?”

Welcome to the bed you made, Kev. Enjoy the fact that you’re going to have to rely on the Democrats to bail you out again.

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House passes debt ceiling deal

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter
UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 1, 2023 · 1:34:30 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Yep. They hate it. 

Biggs is not happy that debt deal passed with more Democrats than Republicans "We were told they'd never put a bill on the floor that would take more Democrats than Rs to pass. We were told that."

— Sarah Ferris (@sarahnferris) June 1, 2023

UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 1, 2023 · 1:26:52 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

The deal passed easily, 314 to 177, with more Democratic than Republican votes. The best thing about a vote that big is that it will make Mike Lee and Rand Paul look more ridiculous when they try to hold it up in the Senate. Also that McCarthy owes so much to the Democrats. The Freedom Caucus guys are going to HATE that,

UPDATE: Thursday, Jun 1, 2023 · 12:39:59 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

Ugh. Yeah, they’re still yammering. 

Mike Lee is on the House floor, huddling with Andy Biggs and Chip Roy

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 1, 2023

UPDATE: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 · 10:12:12 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

The closed rule—no amendments allowed, passed pretty easily 241-187. There were 52 Democratic yes votes, and 29 Republican noes. There might not be as many Dems in support when it comes to final passage, and they’ll probably hold out, letting Republicans go first and then determining how many of them will be needed to help pass it. The House is scheduled to pick up again at 7:15 PM, ET to proceed to final passage.

The debt ceiling/budget bill worked out between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will hit the House floor Wednesday afternoon, in a massive blow to the Freedom Caucus maniacs who have been rooting for the nation to default on its debt and for economic catastrophe. Their short rebellion fizzled, and McCarthy may get at least 150 Republican votes on the plan.

The major part of the drama was over once Rep. Tom Massie, a Kentucky Republican, said he would vote the bill out of the Rules Committee. Freedom Caucus Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina couldn’t convince him to play spoiler, despite histrionics from Roy throughout the day and his dire warning that “The Republican conference has been torn asunder.”

SIGN: End the Debt Limit game of blackmail. Pass real reform.

What has been torn asunder is the control the Freedom Caucus thought they had over McCarthy. That was clear once members of the group started downplaying their one big card: the motion to vacate the chair. It takes only one member to start the ball rolling on ousting McCarthy from the speakership, and it became clear quickly that there was little appetite among the rebels to even try. Even “firebrand” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will likely vote for the bill in the end.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likens raising the debt ceiling to a “shit sandwich” but is a lean yes. “I'm a dessert girl. Everyone loves dessert and that's impeachment, someone needs to be impeached,” she adds.

— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) May 30, 2023

The deal pretty effectively neuters the Freedom Caucus and limits the damage House Republicans can do between now and Jan. 1, 2025. They can’t take the debt ceiling hostage again in the next year and a half, and they can’t shut down the government by refusing to complete spending bills without doing serious political damage to themselves.

From a progressive perspective, the bill isn’t great, and most in the Progressive Caucus probably won’t support it. They don’t have to. There will be enough Republican votes and votes from other Democrats to pass the bill. From a political and economic stability perspective, the bill is fantastic. It averts economic catastrophe and neutralizes the Freedom Caucus in one go. In other words, Biden wins in a big way.

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Harlan Crow blows off another Senate committee

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

Harlan Crow, Texas real estate magnate and very dear friend of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has instructed his lawyer to tell yet another Senate committee to pound sand. Congress doesn’t have the authority to oversee the Supreme Court, the lawyer asserted in a response to the Judiciary Committee’s request for details of the millions of dollars in gifts, travel, hospitality, and real estate transactions provided to Thomas by Crow—money and perks that Thomas has failed to disclose for decades, potentially in violation of federal disclosure laws.

“After careful consideration,” Crow’s lawyer, Michael Bopp, writes, “we do not believe the Committee has the authority to investigate Mr. Crow's personal friendship with Justice Clarence Thomas.” Of course it has that authority. That whole “checks and balances” business we all learned about in civics class—that’s what that’s about. The founders wouldn’t have allowed for the impeachment of Supreme Court justices if they didn’t intend for Congress to be able to check the court.

Crow’s lawyer isn’t just asserting that the Supreme Court is off limits, but that anyone a justice receives special favors from is off limits, too. Life’s great when you’re an untouchable billionaire in America. What the committee was asking for is Crow’s records, not Thomas’, as Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin pointed out. “Mr. Crow’s letter relies on a separation of powers defense when Mr. Crow does not work, and has never worked, for the Supreme Court.”

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It’s similar to the argument that Crow’s lawyers made to Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Finance Committee, when he requested records disclosing all the expensive things Crow has bestowed upon Thomas and Crow’s reporting of these gifts for tax purposes, which the committee oversees. Bopp responded to Wyden with a refusal and claim that the Finance Committee doesn’t have the right to ask for that information, writing that the “Committee must have a legitimate legislative purpose for any inquiry, and the scope of the inquiry must be reasonably related to that purpose.”

Wyden slammed back, assuring Crow’s attorney that his “claim is without merit” and “ignores the Committee’s extensive history considering legislation on matters related to the gift tax, which is a backstop to both our nation’s income and estate tax regimes.” He demanded the information again, and in a statement said it was possible that the committee would have to “follow another route to compel his answers, and I’m prepared to make that happen.” In other words: a subpoena.

Durbin suggested he would consider that route as well, now that Sen. Dianne Feinstein has returned from her illness and Democrats have a majority vote on the committee again, with the power to issue subpoenas. “The Committee will respond more fully to this letter in short order,” Durbin said.

Crow clearly believes he’s not answerable to anyone, and by extension, neither should Thomas be. It’s the premise Chief Justice John Roberts has also adopted with his absolute refusal to appear before the committee to talk about the massive lapses in ethics that have come to light recently. They’re all taking the “Supreme” part of the title way too literally.

Crow insists that he’s a “private person,” “just an old guy” with a penchant for collecting Supreme Court justices to go along with his Nazi memorabilia and statues of dictators. The fact that he’s poured tons of money into right-wing causes, and recruited other millionaires and billionaires to the cause of turning the Supreme Court into the hyperpartisan political entity it is doesn’t mean that he’s not acting with the purest of motives when it comes to his friendship with Thomas.

That seems to be the prevailing attitude on the court, and that’s a massive problem for the nation when public confidence in the highest court has plunged to the lowest level in decades, in multiple surveys. Notably, most were conducted before all the revelations of Thomas’ extremely generous and secretive friend.

It is objectively dangerous for the court to be considered illegitimate by the people. It’s even more dangerous to have the court behave so badly. The government as a whole is resting on what’s a pretty flimsy piece of parchment, after all. It continues to exist as a democracy only as long as we all agree that it should. Or as long as every official who took an oath to the Constitution abides by that commitment.

The current majority on the court isn’t doing that. They won’t do that. They won’t even talk to Congress about whether or not they should be living by the most basic of ethics rules. That has to be fixed, and it has to be done by Congress and the White House. The only way to deal with the problem quickly is to expand the court. After that, further reforms can be examined, but right now, it’s the best way.

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‘Red flags’ were raised over Clarence Thomas disclosures going back to 2011

Posted on by Joan McCarter

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been thumbing his nose at his colleagues, the Senate, and the nation since at least 2011. Back then, watchdogs discovered he had not disclosed household income from his wife, Ginni Thomas—at least five years’ worth of income from her partisan political work the Heritage Foundation and the Tea Party astroturf group she founded. Thomas belatedly filed 20 years’ worth of amended disclosure forms, and then did not change his nondisclosing ways.

There aren’t many ethics rules Supreme Court justices have to observe, but there is a federal law they are bound by: the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. That law applies to the chief justice of the Supreme Court and all the associate justices, along with most other high-level government officials and employees and, in some cases, the spouses and dependent children of those officials, too. Thomas has not abided by that law and has not done so for years.

In 2012, U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf “raised red flags” over the review conducted under the auspices of the Judicial Conference of the United States, Bloomberg News reports based on newly disclosed information. Wolf “repeatedly expressed concern” that the committee assigned to investigate Thomas didn’t disclose its findings and actions to leaders of the conference, the federal judiciary’s policymaking body. The committee independently determined that Thomas had not “willfully” failed to comply, and that his omission of 20 years’ worth of household income in the hundreds of thousands of dollars was a “routine” matter.

Wolf raised enough hell about having been kept in the dark on the matter that the conference did adopt a small change: The committee that looks into disclosure problems has to report to the full conference about them. What the Judicial Conference—comprising the Supreme Court chief, the chiefs of all the judicial circuits, and a district judge from each regional circuit—decides to do with the information is up to them.

Since well before 2011, Thomas has been in the pocket of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow and failed to disclose everything from that relationship including expensive gifts, luxurious travel, profitable real estate deals, and private school tuition for the nephew he was raising as a son. Thomas kept on not disclosing, which is all the evidence needed to surmise that what the Judicial Conference headed up by Chief Justice John Roberts decided to do about it was nothing.

That’s not to say Thomas and pals learned nothing from the experience. His friend Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society founder and dark money maven who has reshaped the federal judiciary, learned that it was better to leave Ginni’s name off of payments for her extreme partisan work. “No mention of Ginni, of course,” Leo instructed when he was arranging for her payment through a third party. If her name isn’t on any of the paperwork, then what would her husband have to disclose?

It’s not just financial disclosures, by the way, where Thomas has failed in any semblance of ethical behavior. He never recused himself from any of the cases before the court that involved Ginni’s political activities. He has recused in other cases involving his son and his employers, so it’s not a matter of Thomas misunderstanding what’s supposed to be done. Thomas is holding himself above those requirements.

He’ll continue to do so as long as Roberts—along with the rest of the court—looks the other way. That’s exactly what Roberts intends to do. He made that clear via his refusal to even talk to Congress about ethics in the court. Because he can get away with it, Thomas will remain defiant, continue to decide cases he shouldn’t be active on, and will probably continue to enjoy the largesse Crow has on offer.

He won’t resign, and as long as the House is in Republican control (and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell draws breath in the Senate) Thomas can’t be impeached, even while he’s a textbook case for impeachment.

Thomas and the whole court are declaring themselves above the law. The only recourse Democrats have in this situation is political. They’ve got to keep Thomas’ corruption—enabled by Republicans—in focus. Democrats must keep having hearings about court reform, they must keep investigating those gifts, and they must keep talking about how every extreme, unpopular partisan decision is brought to you by Republicans.

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McConnell will do anything to win back Senate, insurrection be damned

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

Mitch McConnell’s cravenness knows no bounds. The Senate minority leader is proving it again, basically promising the Senate to former insurrection-loving President Donald Trump—as long as Republicans win in 2024.

When Sen. Steve Daines, the Montanan running the GOP Senate’s 2024 campaign effort, told McConnell he was considering endorsing Trump’s reelection bid, McConnell gave Daines his blessing, The New York Times reports. Because the main thing is winning, a source close to McConnell told the Times, so he is just fine with someone in his leadership team having close ties to the guy he acknowledged is the one who “provoked” the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

"The mob was fed lies," McConnell said on the Senate floor on the occasion of Trump’s second impeachment. "They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like."

McConnell voted to acquit Trump anyway, despite saying, “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.” His condemnation of Trump was unequivocal: “Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

“We all were here. We saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was,” McConnell said in a news conference one year later.

When the Jan. 6 committee voted to refer criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department at the end of last year, McConnell simply said, “The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day.”

According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book about Trump and the 2020 election, titled “Peril,” Trump called McConnell to yell at him on Dec. 15, 2020, after the senator congratulated President-elect Joe Biden from the Senate floor. The Kentucky Republican reportedly said, “Mr. President, the Electoral College has spoken. That's the way we pick a president in this country.”

That was the last time the two spoke, and McConnell’s last words were: “You lost the election, the Electoral College has spoken.” McConnell told numerous people he never wanted to talk to Trump again.

With all that said (not to mention Trump’s litany of racist attacks against McConnell’s wife and former Cabinet member Elaine Chao), McConnell wants to win the Senate back so badly that he’s willing to see the man he accused of leading the attack on the Capitol back in the White House. More than that, he’s willing to help him get back in there: That’s what having a member of Republican Senate leadership on Team Trump means.

The goal is to win back the Senate, “and in service of that goal he is already making accommodations for the former president,” the Times reports. That includes reiterating that he would “absolutely” support Trump if he wins the Republican Party nomination for 2024.

“The thing about Mitch is, he wants a majority in the Senate,” one Republican senator told Politico. That’s all he wants and he will do anything to get it—even if it means putting the guy he admits attacked democracy right back in the Oval Office.

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Politico, Portman continue to pretend that the GOP has any interest in responsible governing

Posted on by Joan McCarter

In a case of unintentional damning by faint praise, Politico spills a bunch of pixels saying good-bye to the “GOP dealmakers” who are leaving the Senate in 2022, six Republican “negotiators known for working across the aisle,” who take the opportunity to pat themselves on the back for doing the least possible things to keep the government from collapsing.

“Some think ‘you have to be more partisan to win elections,’ Portman said in an interview. ‘I think it’s just the opposite.”

That’s how the story opens. Retiring Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, presenting himself as some kind of iconoclastic force for good in the GOP instead of the guy who went along meekly while Mitch McConnell took a sledge hammer to the institution of the Senate and stole the Supreme Court. Who spent four years with Donald Trump as his standard bearer, supporting Trump’s agenda 90% of the time and voting—twice—to acquit him. Even after Jan. 6. Trump’s attempted coup was “inexcusable,” Portman said. Then he conjured up a loophole to give himself an out when it came time to really condemn Trump. It was “unconstitutional” to impeach a former president, he said.

Never mind that it is not.

Anyway, Portman assures us we don’t need to worry about the fact that he and his five colleagues who have also done the bare minimum to keep government open and doing stuff are departing. The new GOP Senate won’t be “quite the change” people are concerned about he says, because “others will step up” to be the compromisers. It’s going to be so completely normal, he implies. Republicans will be responsible, he suggests.

Just like him. Because he was a beacon of responsible bipartisan behavior this session. “Portman said that not running for reelection made it easier to work on the infrastructure bill in Washington, without having to worry about fundraising or traveling home to campaign. Not to mention the typical constituent and party pressures that bear down on lawmakers with upcoming elections.”

Not having to run for reelection didn’t make him suddenly have principles, however. He still helped his party tie the filibuster record they set in the previous session of Congress. Portman didn’t say “boo” when his fellow Republicans—all but Lisa Murkowski—blocked the Senate from even considering voting rights, for example. He voted with them.

Even now, when he’s never running for office again, Portman won’t break with his party. Given the opportunity to condemn Trump, to put down the marker that he would work to oppose another Trump run for the White House, Portman demurred, saying he believes Trump won’t run again. “Many Americans who … are supportive of [Trump] from a policy point of view are ready to see someone else run for president,” Portman said. He added that it seemed like “a lot of Republican voters are ready to move on to a new candidate, whether it’s DeSantis or someone else.”

All this to say that there is no such thing as a decent Republican and that Politico and the rest of the traditional media are never going to acknowledge that fact.

Republicans roiled as McCarthy likely faces first floor fight over leadership in a century

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy heads into this week on very shaky ground. The wannabe speaker will have a tiny majority—four or five seats, depending on the result in the last uncalled race un California’s 13th District. He’s already got five GOP opponents of his speakership, enough to scuttle it.

That could mean the first floor fight for speaker in exactly 100 years, when Republican Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts had to undergo nine votes over a number of days, with a lot of negotiations and many concessions along the way. The leader of the breakaway Republicans, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, challenged McCarthy in the full GOP conference vote for speaker earlier this month and isn’t going to stop fighting.

“He doesn’t have the votes,” Biggs, a leader of the Freedom Caucus, told NBC News. “Some of the stages of grief include denial, so there will be some denial, and then there’ll be the stage of bargaining where people are trying to figure out … will there be some kind of consensus candidate that emerges.”

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Biggs and his cohorts—Reps. Bob Good of Virginia, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Matt Rosendale of Montana—are all publicly opposing McCarthy. Good told Politico that he thinks there are at least a dozen who are solid “no” votes. The tally from that secret balloting in the GOP conference was 188-31. That’s a long way from the 218 McCarthy’s going to need, and a lot of bargaining that Democrats are already branding as “corrupt.”

A nonprofit group called Facts First USA, chaired by former GOP Rep. David Jolly of Florida and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, has a memo circulating among Democrats to highlight just how much McCarthy’s going to cave to the maniacs in order to emerge victorious. The messaging in the memo could play to the Republican moderates, who could definitely play the spoiler role in this fight.

“Democrats should undertake a concerted messaging campaign over the next 5 weeks through January 3rd to brand McCarthy’s struggling campaign to win the speakership as a ‘corrupt bargain’ he is striking with ultra MAGA extremists in the Republican caucus to attain the 218 votes he needs to secure the job,” longtime Democratic activist David Brock wrote in the memo.

That’s not going to be hard, looking at what happened on Day One of the GOP majority. That was the day of the press conference from Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the expected Judiciary Committee chair, about their investigation into the Biden family and the whole QAnon Hunter laptop thing they’re into. Brock labeled it an “unhinged rant” in his memo, and he wasn’t wrong.

It’s not going to be at all difficult for Democrats to use this messaging, that McCarthy is going to make a “corrupt bargain with MAGA” maniacs and allow them to “run wild with any conspiracy theory investigation or impeachment in exchange for their vote.” We’re already there. He’s made the unofficial Q spokesperson, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a part of his ad hoc leadership team and probably promised her a seat on the Oversight committee. Her pal Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, the white supremacist whisperer, is likely going to get his Oversight seat back—the one that was stripped in the current Congress because he is so dangerous.

Meanwhile, Democrats are in total array as the leadership passes from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to a new generation. They’re also relishing the prospect of watching the GOP civil war play out after McCarthy and crew did their best to derail Pelosi’s very slim—and very successful—majority of the past two years.

“They’re going to be fraught with fractures and friction and challenges and apostates. I wish them well in trying to manage that crowd,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia in a Politico interview. He predicted even worse problems for McCarthy than his predecessors faced. “Paul Ryan and John Boehner both had a bigger majority, and they couldn’t exercise control.” And they both were essentially forced out by the maniacs.

The good part, should House and Senate Democrats manage to get as organized and efficient together as possible, is that McCarthy and crew shouldn’t be able to create a lot of damage legislatively. “I don’t lie awake at night worrying about the bad legislation they are going to pass. Because I don’t think they’re going to pass it,” said Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia.

What’s going to make life even harder for McCarthy is his pledge to end proxy voting in the House. It’s been effect for almost all of this Congress because of the COVID-19 pandemic. McCarthy can’t not end it at this point—he had such a hissy fit over it he took it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to even hear it. He’s got to end it, and that means that on any given day, he would have even fewer votes available to accomplish anything.

Unless he strikes a bargain with moderates and Democrats, assuming he does end up with the speakership. It’s just possible that the corrupt bargain label sticks hard enough to McCarthy that moderates hold out and vote with Democrats on an alternative speaker. It’s not terribly likely, but it’s also not impossible.

Those 31 votes McCarthy didn’t get in the secret ballot aren’t all Freedom maniacs—a big chunk could be up for grabs to allow that 218 votes to go to a consensus candidate from Democrats and the few dozen GOP moderates. Now wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants?

As the final results of the 2022 midterm elections came into focus this past week, the lack of clarity in the GOP’s leadership also became apparent. Kerry and Markos break down what this means for Democratic voters going forward and how Donald Trump’s campaign for president is a lose lose proposition for Republicans.  

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It took House GOP just one day to show why Democrats need to bomb-proof everything while they can

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

It’s going exactly how Republicans promised it would if they took the House: vengeance. Nothing but vengeance. Policy agenda? As if.

The first press conference of their majority Thursday, was from the Oversight and Judiciary Committee chairs laying out the number one target for their vendetta. It was all Hunter Biden’s laptop, all the time. A thing that is entirely not real.

On the second day of their majority, Rep. Jim Jordan’s Judiciary committee sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain demanding the testimony of White House staff about the administration’s “misuse of federal criminal and counterterrorism resources to target concerned parents at school board meetings.” Another thing that never happened. All four of the people they are demanding testimony from are women, and some are women of color.

That was just the start. Jordan also sent letters to Justice, the FBI, Departments of Education, and Homeland Security telling them to “anticipate requiring testimony, either in hearings or transcribed interviews” from dozens more officials, many again of whom are people of color and women.

What about inflation? What about gas prices? What about fentanyl? What about violent crime? What about immigration? What about making sure everyone can afford to go to Disneyland?

As if.

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They are not interested in making government work. They won’t try to make government work. Which is why it is imperative that Democrats do all the stuff while they have the majority. That includes figuring out how to put the debt ceiling out of their reach, just for a start. That one’s a necessity.

So is doing the least they can on protecting the next presidential election by pushing the electoral count reforms through. We have some breathing room on that with the great results in some swing state elections, but fixing this is important, particularly now that larger election reforms can’t get done.

It would also be super smart to revive the child tax credit monthly payments from the 2021 COVID-19 relief bill Democrats passed, and generally do do everything they possibly can to help regular people and to make a very big deal out of it—the Democrats’ Christmas Gift to America—to start making the case for 2024.

Which will have to happen the week after next, because they’re already gone until after Thanksgiving. Oh, well. In the meantime, enjoy the Washington Post showing us what a fool Kevin McCarthy is, and relish how his red wave became a pink dribble.

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