Biden wins on Ukraine as House GOP faces big decision about its future

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Joan McCarter

President Joe Biden and Democrats won big in the House Saturday, when it voted resoundingly in support of Ukraine aid. This could mark a turning point for Republicans, leaving them with a choice: to admit defeat and start governing, or to keep fighting with each other.

For months, both former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and current Speaker Mike Johnson have catered to Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the House GOP on Ukraine aid, insisting that it could not pass without a harsh immigration and border security bill. Once they got that, they turned it down at Trump’s request. Now there’s Ukraine aid and no border deal—a big loss for far-right Republicans and Trump.

This could signal that the fever has finally broken among the governing bloc of the GOP … or not. What it has done is unleash a torrent of anger against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the extremist Freedom Caucus by some non-MAGA members.

Before the vote, Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas slammed his colleagues, saying, “I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the speaker over it, I mean that’s a strange position to take … I think they want to be in the minority too, I think that’s an obvious reality.”

Even Biden impeachment zealot Rep. James Comer denounced Greene’s efforts to oust Johnson in an interview on Fox News.

“Now Mike Johnson walked into a bad situation,” Comer said. “It’s gotten a lot worse since he’s been here. But changing speakers is not the right business model.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas completely unleashed his anger toward his MAGA colleagues on Sunday, calling them “scumbags” who “used to walk around in white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime,” during an interview on CNN.

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But Greene and her accomplices are showing no signs of backing down.

“There is more support,” for her efforts, Greene said Monday. “It's growing. I've said from the beginning, I'm going to be responsible with this ... I do not support Mike Johnson. He's already a lame duck. If we have the vote today in our conference he would not be speaker today.”

Greene’s cosponsor Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said Friday, "We want Mike Johnson to resign. We don't want to go speaker-less. So the goal is to show him, through co-sponsorship, how much support he's lost and hopefully he'll get the message and give us a notice so that we have time ... to replace him.”

That’s a tacit acknowledgement that they’d lose on the House floor if they tried to force Johnson out, since enough Democrats would vote to keep him now that he’s finally done the right thing. So it’s really up to the rest of the Republicans to decide. Will they squash Greene and her team once and for all? Will they accept that anything they accomplish in the remainder of this election year will have to involve Democrats and finally stop with the ridiculous messaging nonsense? (Fat chance.)

Meanwhile, most of Biden’s major priorities have been successful, including the securing of a debt limit deal with McCarthy. Despite the maniacs’ best effort, the government did not shut down and was funded at adequate levels. Now Ukraine will finally get the critical aid it needs to stave off Russia once the Senate passes the bill on Tuesday.

On top of all that, the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas collapsed, and the Biden impeachment is dead in the water.

House Democrats hold Johnson’s fate in their hands, and everyone knows it—including the majority of Republicans. Has the fever broken in the GOP? Not as long as Trump is alive and kicking, though his political days might be numbered.

There are likely still big fights to come over next year’s budget, and it’s going to be up to the House GOP to figure out how to salvage something out of its tiny majority before the election.

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Republicans get Ukraine demands met, so of course they change their minds

Mike Johnson owes everything to Democrats, and it could cost him his gavel

The House GOP can’t even go on vacation without fighting

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Joan McCarter

It wasn’t pretty—particularly on the House side—but Congress got the government funded, but the bruising battle to do that doesn’t end beleaguered House Speaker Mike Johnson’s headaches. In fact, it could put him in an even tougher position with his fractious caucus when they return from their two-week recess, on April 9. Hanging over him are his party’s very slim majority and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s threat to oust him if he brings a Ukraine aid bill to the floor for a vote.

Colorado GOP Rep. Ken Buck is gone as of Friday, and happy as a clam to be out of it. "No rearview mirror," Buck said in his exit interview on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "Happy to move on." He added that leadership has “serious problems with setting priorities,” including the ongoing ridiculous impeachment efforts of President Joe Biden and a bunch of cabinet secretaries. “We have a very tragic circumstance in Ukraine. We have spiraling debt, all kinds of out-of-control problems, and we focus on messaging bills that get us nowhere,” he said.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, is hot on Buck’s heels. His surprise announcement Friday that he’s starting his retirement from Congress early, on April 19, will leave Johnson with only one vote to spare—and looking over his shoulder if he puts a Ukraine aid bill on the floor.

Greene has said such a bill would be her trigger to activate her motion to vacate the chair, which would force a vote on removing Johnson from the speakership. A few other Republicans, including Freedom Caucus Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, are playing coy. Just to rub Johnson’s nose in it a little more, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie taunted Johnson with this X (formerly Twitter) poll:

Do you approve of the job Mike Johnson is doing as Speaker of the House?
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 23, 2024

More than ever, Johnson is going to need Democratic votes to hang onto the speaker’s gavel and get anything accomplished. That basically puts Democrats in control of the Ukraine debate. It also puts Johnson in even more of a bind. Having to rely on Democrats for protection and to pass critical bills will create only more turmoil for him with his Republican detractors.

On top of all that, there are vacancies in top seats on committees. In another surprise announcement on Friday, Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger of Texas stepped down. Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, currently the chair of the powerful Rules Committee, immediately announced he wanted the Appropriations job, and he’ll likely get it.

Cole, an ally of the current leadership, could do both jobs but that would probably serve to further enrage the Freedom Caucus and their allies. Reps. Roy, Norman, and Massie are all on the Rules Committee—the deciding voting bloc that has proven to be a massive headache for Johnson already. They could raise hell and demand that another one of their own get the chairman’s seat, another brewing flashpoint for Johnson.

All this while Johnson has to worry about Buck’s parting shot. He warned in an interview with Axios, on March 12, “I think it's the next three people that leave that they're going to be worried about.” One of them—Gallagher—is on his way out, and all the turmoil ahead makes Buck’s prediction even more likely.

Marjorie Taylor Greene threatens to oust new House speaker for ... reasons

With vacations on the line, House finally manages to fund the government

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Kevin McCarthy sucked as speaker, but he’s good at revenge

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Joan McCarter

From primary challenges to getting blackballed from House Republicans caucuses, the eight Republicans who ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are feeling the blowback. His allies—and he has many of them—are making sure of that.

The Republican Main Street Caucus and Republican Governance Group have quietly booted Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, whose attention-getting stunts seem to be wearing thin with her colleagues. “She really wants to be a caucus of one. So we obliged her,” one House Republican told CNN.

Mace is facing a serious primary challenger, as is Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, the new chair of the Freedom Caucus and one of the anti-McCarthy eight. “A well-connected GOP outside spending group is planning to play in the [primary] races,” CNN reports, and McCarthy is likely to be directly involved on behalf of the challengers as well.

Where the real hammer is falling on this eight is in their fundraising. Others, including Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Eli Crane, acknowledge that the big donors aren’t taking their calls anymore. Burchett told CNN’s Manu Raju that he “absolutely” had seen his donations dry up. “Some very wealthy folks, and they’ve been very kind to me in the past,” Burchett said of donors who had dropped him. “And I hope that we can mend the fences,” he added. Good luck to him on that one.

Crane of Arizona told Raju he was feeling a fundraising hit. “Yeah, that’s definitely a reality,” he said. “And I think anybody that participated in that knew that going forward.”

He’s right. They knew what they were doing, and they asked for this. Booting McCarthy meant ousting their most effective fundraiser. Ousting him meant pissing off all those big donors he’s been cultivating all these years. They’re friends of Kev, and they are happy to help him get his revenge.

Speaking of revenge, that’s what the ouster was all about. The spearhead of the chaos, Rep. Matt Gaetz, admitted it to a colleague in private correspondence obtained by The Daily Beast. According to the outlet, “Gaetz indicated to a friend that his effort to undercut, isolate, and ultimately remove McCarthy was, indeed, payback for the ethics probe.” That would be the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz for alleged sex crimes, drug use, and campaign finance violations, to name a few.

Do any of Gaetz’s pals blame him for putting them in this position? Of course not. “I’m too busy working for the Lowcountry and helping elect President Trump to worry about Kevin McCarthy’s puppet,” Mace told CNN. “The DC swamp doesn’t want me back—too bad. I don’t work for them, I work for the people of the 1st Congressional District and no one else.”

The rest of the GOP conference loves to see McCarthy’s revenge. “If I’m those folks, one of the things that would scare the crap out of me more than anything else is an unhinged McCarthy,” a Republican lawmaker told CNN. “The guy’s the most prolific fundraiser, you’ve got a massive group of donors across the country that are pissed off about what’s happening, and you’ve got these boneheads that have caused it.”

Rep. Nancy Mace's attention-seeking escalates with 'Scarlet Letter' stunt

Kevin McCarthy's removal as speaker sparks fundraising crisis for GOP

The war between Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy is far from over

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Disinformation is a growing problem in American politics, but combating it in Latino media poses its own special challenges. Joining us on this week's episode of "The Downballot" is Roberta Braga, founder of the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas, a new organization devoted to tackling disinformation and building resiliency in Latino communities. Braga explains how disinformation transcends borders but also creates opportunities for people in the U.S. to import new solutions from Latin America. She also underscores the importance of fielding Latino candidates and their unique ability to address the issue.

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Republicans ‘in the middle of a civil war’ as shutdown looms

Posted on September 18, 2023 by Joan McCarter

Who could have predicted it? The trial balloon a handful of House Freedom Caucus members floated with a few “establishment” Main Street Caucus members was shot down Sunday before it even started to rise.

The proposal consisted of a one-month continuing resolution that would keep the government funded through Oct. 31 but slash spending on nearly everything but defense, veterans programs, and disaster relief by more than 8% for the next month. The proposal also featured elements of a racist border funding/policy bill that passed the House in May. Every element of this—the cuts, the racist border bill, and the short time frame—would no doubt have been rejected by the Senate, even if it could pass the House.

However, it won’t pass the House because enough of the hardest hardliners have said no, and there’s no way Democrats would vote for it.

Florida man Rep. Matt Gaetz immediately rejected it. “I will not support this 167 page surrender to Joe Biden,” he said. Freedom Caucus Reps. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Matt Rosendale of Montana, Eli Crane of Arizona, and others piled on. That included Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s good pal Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. That’s more than enough to bring the bill down.

According to The Washington Post, House leadership nevertheless has a “goal of uniting all flanks of the conference to support passing the deal.” McCarthy was a bit befuddled by it all Monday morning. "If you're not willing to pass appropriations bills and you're not willing to pass a continuing resolution to allow you to pass the rest of the appropriations bills and you don't want an omnibus, I don't quite know what you want,” he told reporters, summing up all the things the extremists have said they won’t do.

He reportedly did give a hint about how he might try to force his conference together on this: terrorists on the border! He has asked for a classified briefing on the issue. While the Department of Homeland Security has reported that the number of people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list that border agents encountered has increased in the past several months, the key part of that is that border agents stopped them from crossing.

McCarthy intended to bring this proposal to the floor in tandem with the defense appropriations bill the extremists derailed last week. “I gave them an opportunity this weekend to try to work through this, and we’ll bring it to the floor win or lose,” McCarthy said on Fox News’ Sunday morning.

That’s likely to be a “lose” if he tries to ram the bills through together. Democrats will almost surely not help. Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl that the House Republicans are "in the middle of a civil war.”

"It's unfortunate,” he added. “But as House Democrats, we're going to continue to try to find common ground with the other side of the aisle. … Hopefully the House Republicans will come along so that we can work to make sure we are funding the government."

The House Republican conference, and thus the whole House, remains in chaos, with just 12 days left for McCarthy to figure out how not to shut the government down.

Sign and send the petition: Pass a clean funding bill. No GOP hostage taking.

House Freedom Caucus plans to shut down the government, blame it on the Senate

Sinema ally calls House's racist immigration bill 'a good first step'

What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.

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Divorce is hard, new places are too: Read Boebert’s BS apology for ‘Beetlejuice’ behavior

Posted on September 16, 2023 by Jessica Sutherland

Lauren Boebert wants you to know she’s going through some things, okay?

The Colorado representative, who just barely won reelection in 2022 over Democrat Adam Frisch, saw some severe damage done this week to her hard-won reputation as one of Congress’ most obnoxious members. After news emerged that she and her companion were removed from a Denver theatrical production of “Beetlejuice” for—well, lots of reasons—the proud Freedom Caucus member was quick to make a mockery of her bad behavior—or rather the theater’s response to it.

But now Boebert’s apologizing … for behavior she initially denied.

The initial story is a familiar one to anyone who’s seen a performance of anything with a big group. From the redacted Buell Theatre incident report, first obtained Monday by The Colorado Sun:

Lower director (NAME REDACTED), received three different complaints about the patrons sitting in Orch C Row E seats 1 and 2 that they were vaping, singing, causing a disturbance. (NAME REDACTED) radioed for support and supervisor Jorge, Roxanne, and I respond to the location.

The patrons were not at their seats when we arrived, and we waited until they returned. Once the patrons returned, I informed them that our usher team had noticed vaping and also that they were causing a disturbance for the area with noise, singing, using their cell phone, and that they need to be respectful to their neighbors.

Since, there was already multiple complaints, I informed the patrons that if there was another issue that they would be asked to leave. The patrons were argumentative.

Predictably, “there was another issue,” and the patrons were asked to leave.

They told me they would not leave. I told them that they need to leave the theatre and if they do not, they will be trespassing. The patrons said they would not leave. I told them I would going to get Denver Police. They said go get them.

I walk out into the vestibule and radioed for support.

[...]

The patron[s] left the theatre on their own. (NAME REDACTED) said he told them they could get banned and they exited.

I speak to the patrons in the vestibule, again telling them they have to leave the property and they argue. They say stuff like “do you know who I am” “I am on the board” “I will be contacting the mayor.”

On Monday, Team Boebert declined to comment to The Sun, but by late Tuesday, Boebert, 36, offered a signature snarky tweet about the incident.

It's true, I did thoroughly enjoy the AMAZING Beetlejuice at the Buell Theatre and I plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud! 🤭 Everyone should go see it if you get the chance this week and please let me know how it ends! 😅https://t.co/8JHypcCKsP
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) September 12, 2023

On Wednesday, the local NBC affiliate got surveillance footage of the incident, shattering Boebert’s cheeky downplay, and painting an even worse picture of the her antics than the Buell incident report did. With all attention focused on Boebert’s tasteless disruption—rather than, say, making fun of (but still amplifying) what must’ve been a hard-won POLITICO puff piece published that very morning—Team Boebert went on the offensive, accusing the Buell Theatre workers and attendees of lying.

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The Washington Post:

Drew Sexton, Boebert’s campaign manager, confirmed that the congresswoman was escorted out of the performance, but he disputed the alleged behavior cited by the venue.

“I can confirm the stunning and salacious rumors: in her personal time, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is indeed a supporter of the performing arts (gasp!) and, to the dismay of a select few, enthusiastically enjoyed a weekend performance of Beetlejuice,” he said in a statement.

Sexton denied that Boebert was vaping during “Beetlejuice,” saying that heavy fog machines and electronic cigarettes were used during the show, so there might have been “a misunderstanding from someone sitting near her.”

Sure, Jan. Even Boebert made light of the situation.

On Thursday? A pregnant woman sitting behind Boebert and her beau spoke to The Denver Post, telling her side of the “surreal” story.

The woman says Boebert took multiple long videos during the first half of the performance. When she asked Boebert to stop vaping, the congresswoman simply said “no,” the woman said. Boebert was also kissing the man she was with, and singing along loudly with her hands in the air, the woman said.

“At intermission, I asked, ‘Are there any other seats available? Can we sit somewhere else?’” the woman said. “The usher said, ‘You’re not the first complaint we had.’ ”

When the woman returned with her husband to their seats, she said Boebert called her a “sad and miserable person.”

“The guy she was with offered to buy me and my husband cocktails. I’m pregnant!” she said.

Which brings us to Friday, when more footage shot all sorts of holes in Boebert’s denials of vaping.

What’s a panicked, freshly single new grandma who was just 546 votes away from losing the closest House race of 2022 to do? Faux-pologize, of course, and invoke her ongoing divorce.

The past few days have been difficult and humbling, and I’m truly sorry for the unwanted attention my Sunday evening in Denver has brought to the community. While none of my actions or words as a private citizen that night were intended to be malicious or meant to cause harm, the reality is they did and I regret that.

There’s no perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce, which over the past few months has made for a challenging personal time for me and my entire family. I’ve tried to handle it with strength and grace as best I can, but I simply fell short of my values on Sunday. That’s unacceptable and I’m sorry.

Whether it was the excitement of seeing a much-anticipated production or the natural anxiety of being in a new environment, I genuinely did not recall vaping that evening when I discussed the night’s events with my campaign team while confirming my enthusiasm for the musical. Regardless of my belief, it’s clear now that was not accurate. It was not my or my campaign’s intention to mislead, but we do understand the nature of how this looks. We know we will have to work to earn your trust back and it may not happen overnight, but we will do it.

I’m deeply thankful to those in the 3rd District who have defended me and reached out this week and offered grace and support when I needed it most. I’ve learned some humbling lessons these last few days but I vow moving forward, I will make you proud.

Sure, Lauren. We all have those stories where “new environment” anxiety made us forget what we did in said environment! And who hasn’t insulted a nearby pregnant woman when anticipation is on the line? Divorce is hard, especially when one is as committed to destroying democracy as Boebert and her Freedom Caucus pals are.

House Freedom Caucus plans to shut down the government, blame it on the Senate

Posted on September 15, 2023 by Joan McCarter

In 15 days, funding for all federal government operations will expire, barring a miracle (or House Speaker Kevin McCarthy having a personality transplant that turns him into a competent leader, which puts us back in miracle territory). A guy who lets people like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz pressure him into trying to impeach President Joe Biden based on the hallucinations of Rudy Giuliani isn’t likely to transform into a competent strategist.

The House returned from its six-week August recess Tuesday afternoon ready to do one of the easiest things Congress ever has to accomplish: spending a lot of money on the Pentagon. They failed—massively—as the extremist zealots refused to let the bill come to the floor. They didn’t do it because they’re opposed to the bill. They did it because they can, as a power flex.

No one in the House seems capable of coming up with a plan to stop them. “It’s stupid,” Idaho GOP Rep. Mike Simpson complained to Politico. “We’ve been seeing this coming for the last three or four months. I just didn’t think we were dumb enough to get there,” he said. Simpson should know better, coming from Idaho of all places, the sinkhole of GOP stupidity.

Another senior GOP member told Semafor that what happened with the “Five Families” in the “Godfather” movies is coming. “The whole family kills each other,” they said. “I think we’re close to that right now. We are in maybe the Godfather II stage.” The member is probably referring to the fact that GOP leadership in the House decided to emulate “The Godfather” by calling the various factions in the House the “Five Families.” For real. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies.

Two of those five are working on a supposed solution. A few members of both the Main Street Caucus, made up of supposed moderates, and the Freedom Caucus started meeting Wednesday to hatch some sort of stopgap funding plan, including spending cuts and border security funding.

Since Freedom Caucus guy Chip Roy of Texas is one of the negotiators, don’t expect it to work. What he’s in it for is a shutdown that they can blame on the Senate. He admitted it.

SHUTDOWN: @chiproytx says at Family Research Council he views a shutdown as inevitable because of Senate intransigence. He says GOP uniting around push for border policy changes as reason for fight
— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) September 15, 2023

The Senate will not accept a stopgap bill or a continuing resolution that slashes funding. For one thing, it’s called a continuing resolution because what it does is continue current funding. Roy knows that. His whole group knows that. A shutdown is exactly what the Freedom Caucus wants, for whatever reason.

“We’re going to have a shutdown, it’s just a matter of how long,” GOP @RepRalphNorman says. “We believe in what we are doing. The jury will be the country. And the jury is fed up with reckless spending.”
— Ben Siegel (@bensiegel) September 14, 2023

The “jury” does not want that. Seventy-one percent of Republicans “believe a government shutdown this fall would hurt the economy,” according to the latest polling from Navigator Research. Other Republicans understand that. “Have we ever not got blamed for a shutdown? ... I’m worried about the basic functions of government,” said Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong of South Dakota.

Making matters even worse for McCarthy, he lost another vote Friday when Rep. Chris Stewart’s planned resignation was supposed to take effect. That leaves just a four-vote margin for McCarthy.

The glaring solution—and the inevitable one—is reaching out and compromising for Democratic votes. It’s the only way this gets solved. But at this point, it’s going to take Republicans reaping the disaster of a shutdown to force them to do it.

Sign the petition: Denounce MAGA GOP's baseless impeachment inquiry against Biden

House hardliners brag about 'chaos' as government shutdown looms

What did McCarthy gain by caving on impeachment? Nothing

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McCarthy talks tough, rebels yawn

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Joan McCarter

In a closed-door meeting Thursday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an F-bomb-filled tirade, daring hardliners to just try to oust him. “If you think you scare me because you want to file a motion to vacate, move the f—ing motion,” McCarthy said, according to the three Republicans who immediately ran and told Politico. Odds the three are McCarthy allies? Very high. The motion in question is what Rep. Matt Gaetz is threatening, calling for a vote in the House to remove McCarthy from the seat.

For his part, Gaetz was unimpressed. “Sounds like @SpeakerMcCarthy is having a total normal one - not rattled at all,” he tweeted. “Truth is Kevin controls his own fate. … Pull yourself together, Kevin!”

McCarthy also tried to convince the extremists that they have to relent and agree to a stopgap funding bill before the end of the month, averting a government shutdown. That didn’t work so well, either. Freedom Caucus Rep. Chip Roy of Texas went on Glenn Beck’s show and was mad that McCarthy is trying to work the conference to avoid a shutdown. “My point is force an actual trajectory change and a shift or get out of the damn game,” he said.

Not content just to swear at fellow Republicans, McCarthy also threatened to take away their weekends, Politico reports. He reiterated what he said in the meeting afterward. "When we come back (Monday), we're not going [to] leave,” he told reporters. “We're going to get this done. Nobody wins in a government shutdown. Nobody wins in a government shutdown."

That message might have worked better if he didn’t have a history of bailing on hard votes. This week, which consisted of barely three days, was the first one back in session for the House since July 27, when they left town early after failing to pass the agriculture appropriations bill.

The House was supposed to have passed the annual defense appropriations bill this week, but the Freedom Caucus and others shut that down, too. They refused to vote for the procedural motion bringing the bill to the floor, effectively blocking anything of import from being done in the House and complicating McCarthy’s plans to avert a shutdown in 16 days and a few hours.

What’s his plan now? Who knows. Cue the sad trombone:

McCarthy with the understatement of the month as Congress speeds toward a federal shutdown asked if he has a plan for next week McCarthy, almost whispering, replied: “I had a plan for this week. It didn’t turn out exactly as I planned”
— Meredith Lee Hill (@meredithllee) September 14, 2023

Sign the petition: No to shutdowns, no to Biden impeachment, no to Republicans.

Gaetz attacks McCarthy in wild House speech

House bails early for August, and the old guard and newbie Republicans are cranky about it

House hardliners brag about ‘chaos’ as government shutdown looms

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Joan McCarter

On its first full day of work following the August recess, the House was supposed to start the floor process to bring up the defense appropriations bill Wednesday. The people in charge of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, however, had other plans. That plan consists of: one, shutting the House down while they come up with more unreasonable demands for slashing government funding and, two, running the clock down toward Oct. 1, when they can shut the whole government down.

One of the hardliners in the House, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, told Politico that running amok is their master plan. “We have an evolving strategy going right now. This whole place is about chaos, right?” Got that? Chaos is strategy.

McCarthy did not have enough votes to pass the first procedural vote on the military spending bill, and wasn’t going to force a repeat of his resounding defeat in June, when 11 hardliners unexpectedly voted against the motion to proceed on a bill and tied the House up for days, not allowing any legislation to advance to the floor. The ploy then was to force McCarthy to renege on the deal he made with President Joe Biden to avert a debt default, and slash the agreed-upon spending levels by billions. It worked.

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At least McCarthy learned from that experience and counted the votes before he put the defense appropriations bill on the floor, saving himself a modicum of embarrassment. Otherwise, it’s a repeat of the June fiasco, with the added excitement of a pending government shutdown in just 10 legislative days.

The obstructionists aren’t opposing this appropriations bill, just like they weren’t opposed to the legislation back in June—that was a ridiculous bit of political posturing about people’s freedom to have gas stoves. This bill, which Republicans are programmed to love because it contains money for the Pentagon, is chock-full of their culture-war bullshit. They’re blocking it because it’s the best hostage they can take now.

“Nobody’s objecting to what’s in the bill,” said House Rules Committee Chair Tom Cole. “Everybody’s trying to leverage the bill for something now.” What they want isn’t exactly clear beyond, as Politico writes, “a litany of demands from [the] right flank on how to handle federal spending talks with the Senate to avert a funding lapse.”

One thing the House hardliners don’t want is a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown. That would mean continuing to spend at current levels, which they say is too much. They want to go back to the previous funding year, 2022, but that simply can’t be done in a continuing resolution. That’s not how this works. Which means they want to shut the government down.

There are any number of other demands, none of which are impeachment. “[McCarthy] starting an impeachment inquiry gives him no—zero—cushion, relief, brace, as it applies to spending,” Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, one of the revolters, told Politico. So good job on that one, Mr. Speaker.

This is another big blow to McCarthy. If he can’t get the defense bill passed—of all goddamned things—you know how hopeless it all is. There seems to be no possible way the speaker can regain control of the House at this point, and that makes a government shutdown almost inevitable.

GOP rebels shut the House down

Freedom Caucus bites back

What did McCarthy gain by caving on impeachment? Nothing

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy just set himself up for a game of government shutdown Whac-A-Mole. He gave in to the loudest voices—well, two voices mostly: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and Matt Gaetz’s—and agreed to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, all based on nonsense and lies. Just about the only thing McCarthy achieved by agreeing to this was demonstrating yet again that he’ll fold to the extremists every time.

He also opened the floodgates for every other faction in the Republican conference to make demands.

Gaetz did not back down once McCarthy agreed to impeachment. On the contrary: He attacked McCarthy, promising that he’d move to oust the speaker if McCarthy didn’t start fulfilling a bunch of secret promises he allegedly made back in January, during his ego-bruising fight to win the speaker’s gavel.

Then there is the Freedom Caucus. On the heels of McCarthy’s announcement, they held a press conference to reiterate that no way, no how are they going to allow the government to be funded.

McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry hasn’t swayed the Freedom Caucus towards funding the government pic.twitter.com/sLink7n70S
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 12, 2023

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“Enough!” shouted a very worked up Rep. Chip Roy. “I will not continue to fund a government at war with the American people. We are here to change it. It is time to end it and I’m proud to stand with these patriots to do that.” What is the government supposedly warring with the people about? Who knows what Roy is ranting about this time. Maybe immigration, or the COVID vaccine, or maybe aid to Ukraine. He’s just mad.

How is McCarthy going to deal with that? With a margin of just five Republican votes to spare, he clearly isn’t going to be able to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running. He’s going to need Democratic votes. Now that he’s decided to ratchet up the partisanship with a bogus impeachment inquiry, House Democrats sure aren’t going to want to help him out. He isolated himself further from Biden and Senate Democrats, the very people who can bail him out with an agreement.

There are just 11 legislative days before funding runs out, and as of now, McCarthy is on his own. On the Senate side, Republicans are aligning with the Democrats to avert a shutdown. The majority of House Republicans probably don’t want a shutdown, but right now they’re cowering and staying out of it.

While McCarthy is bumbling his way toward this disaster, federal government officials are being forced to spend a lot of time—and time is money!—going through the process of figuring out how to shut agencies down, who to furlough, and how to keep necessary stuff running. That means hundreds of thousands of federal workers are once again on tenterhooks, not knowing if they’ll be getting a paycheck next month.

The weakest speaker in recent memory is on a path to prove he’s also the most destructive one, just by virtue of his own incompetence.

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Why does it seem like Republicans have such a hard time recruiting Senate candidates who actually live in the states they want to run in? We're discussing this strange but persistent phenomenon on this week's edition of "The Downballot." The latest example is former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who's been spending his time in Florida since leaving the House in 2015, but he's not the only one. Republican Senate hopefuls in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Montana, and Wisconsin all have questionable ties to their home states—a problem that Democrats have gleefully exploited in recent years. (Remember Dr. Oz? Of course you do.)

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Freedom Caucus stalwart opposes impeachment, becomes GOP target

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Joan McCarter

Rep. Ken Buck is a prototypical Freedom Caucus member. The Colorado Republican relishes being a maverick, voting his conscience, and fighting with leadership—or with his extremist colleagues—when he feels like it. Now Buck finds himself enmeshed in that “perfect storm” he warned Speaker Kevin McCarthy was coming, and the House Republican majority is turned inside out. Buck is now on the outside of a ridiculous scheme, which has been put into motion by McCarthy, to move forward on impeaching President Joe Biden.

The problem is that Buck remains reality-based. He used to be a federal prosecutor, so he knows some stuff—like the fact that in order to impeach a president, you have to have evidence that they’ve done something impeachable. “The time for impeachment is the time when there’s evidence linking President Biden — if there’s evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor. That doesn’t exist right now,” Buck said in an interview on MSNBC last weekend.

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He called Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s threat to shut the government down if McCarthy didn’t agree to start an impeachment inquiry “absurd.” Now Greene is on the warpath. “This is the same guy that wrote a book called ‘Drain the Swamp’, who is now arguing against an impeachment inquiry,” Greene said. “I really don’t see how we can have a member on Judiciary that is flat out refusing to impeach. … It seems like, can he even be trusted to do his job at this point?”

It’s possible that Buck was involved in ousting Greene from the Freedom Caucus (he had a lot to say about it) a few months ago, or that Greene thinks he was, so she might be going after him for that. One of the reasons Greene was booted was because she was too cozy with leadership—specifically with McCarthy. Whatever the case, there is now a contingent in the House GOP that is aligning themselves with Greene—and apparently leadership—against Buck.

A number of sources told CNN that “there is growing frustration” in the conference, “including among the leadership ranks,” over a number of Buck’s positions, probably stemming back to his vote to certify the 2020 election and his defense of former Rep. Liz Cheney when Republican leadership was kicking her out. He’s also voted against some bills McCarthy considers key to demonstrating his leadership, like the debt ceiling deal and the defense authorization act. These are very Freedom Caucus things to do; Buck has never voted for a debt ceiling authorization because he hates the debt. About half of his fellow caucus members also voted against it.

It’s a hell of a thing. One of the most Freedom Caucus-ish members of the Freedom Caucus is now sounding like a reasonable, sensible, establishment kind of Republican, and leadership is running with the hare-brained impeachment idea. There’s clearly no room for being reality-based in the House with Kevin McCarthy (at least nominally) in charge.

That’s a Republican Party in disarray.

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