Vulnerable House Republicans jump on Trump train with impeachment vote

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House Republicans unanimously voted on Wednesday to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite no evidence of any high crimes or misdemeanors by the president. Also despite the fact that the face of their effort, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, has become a national laughingstock because of it.

But this isn’t about Biden. It’s about proving loyalty to Donald Trump, and plenty of Republicans will happily admit that. For example, when Rolling Stone asked what Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas hopes to gain through this, Nehls replied, “All I can say is Donald J. Trump 2024, baby.” GOP Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee made it clear they're doing the MAGA base’s bidding: “If we don’t go down these impeachment routes, a huge part of America is going to just say, ‘You know, we’re not supporting Republicans any more.’” In other words, they’re afraid of the MAGA base.

That makes the decision of the group now known as the “Biden 17” (following the expulsion of Rep. George Santos) even more questionable. For the 17 House Republicans who occupy districts that voted for Biden in 2020, it couldn’t be clearer that this is all about fealty to Trump, and they all happily signed on. They weren’t necessarily happy to talk about it, however.

Rep. Michelle Steel of California declined to talk to The Orange County Register about her vote at all. In a statement to the paper, California Rep. Young Kim pretended there was some higher principle involved about oversight: “This inquiry allows relevant committees to get more information on serious allegations, follow the facts and be transparent with the American people.” She also made it clear that she doesn’t sit on the committees, so it’s not her idea. But she voted for it anyway.

The New York freshmen among the Biden 17 were all for Trump, too. They also tried to dress it up and make it sound legitimate. “I think that the President needs to be held accountable and that there needs to be answers to some very serious questions regarding impropriety,” said Rep. Marc Molinaro. A spokesman for Rep. Anthony D’Esposito said they need to advance “this inquiry in a level-headed manner” because the allegations about Biden are “troubling.” Rep. Mike Lawler tried to minimize the vote. “Impeachment is a far ways off, but the inquiry is important,” he said.

Impeachment is entirely likely with this crew in the House. A conviction isn’t going to happen. The Senate won’t do that. There are few Republicans in the Senate who will straight-up endorse the idea without qualifications

They largely understand that while the MAGA base might be all wound up for it, the voting public as a whole is lukewarm about the idea at best, according to a recent Morning Consult poll. That includes independent votes, a plurality of which—43%—say the inquiry should not happen. Now that the inquiry is official, it seems likely that the non-MAGA American public is going to sour on it.

House Republicans to hold vote formalizing Biden impeachment inquiry

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Congress wraps for the year, after giving Putin a Christmas gift

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Joan McCarter

The Republican House got out of town in record speed Thursday morning with its last vote of the year, passing the final $886 billion defense policy bill agreed to by Senate and House negotiators earlier this month. The Senate cleared the bill Wednesday, so it’s off to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature.

Speaker Mike Johnson is slinking out of D.C. without giving the traditional end-of-year press conference. He hasn’t had a stellar few months in leadership, having already pissed off the hard right in his conference, so it’s hard to blame him for avoiding the ritual listing of accomplishments. That and he hasn’t really had any to talk about, other than the impeachment circus. In contrast, ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy celebrated his last day in Congress with a photo line for members and staffers.

What that means is Congress will leave for the year without providing aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan because of Republican opposition. Senate Republicans have refused to consider the aid package, extorting extreme immigration concessions for their votes. They have been dragging out the negotiations, seemingly plotting with Johnson and House Republicans to ensure that the issue be pushed off to January. Once the House adjourned for the year, any agreement the Senate came up with couldn’t be passed anyway, Republicans argued.

That’s after Biden made an offer conceding to many of the Senate Republicans immigration demands. Nothing was in writing, and Republicans initially scoffed at the offer. The problem for Biden is that the delay means opposition to his immigration concessions can harden among Democrats. The 42-member Congressional Hispanic Caucus held a press conference Wednesday to voice their opposition and tell Biden to reject the Republicans’ demands.

“Republicans are pitting vulnerable groups against each other to strong-arm policies that will exacerbate chaos at the southern border,” said Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán of California. “We are urging the Biden administration to say no. Do not take the bait.” Barragán also pointed out that the “negotiations are taking place without a single Latino at the table, without a single CHC member at the table, and not even consultation or engagement with our Latino lawmakers.”

Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico reiterated that issue in an interview with Punchbowl News. “I do not see any Latino or Latina advocates at that table who are part of this conversation that are shaping this policy,” said Luján, who has also expressed his concerns about Israel’s war in Gaza.

The only one who is happy right now seems to be Russian President Vladimir Putin, who crowed in a press conference Thursday that "Ukraine produces almost nothing today, everything is coming from the west, but the free stuff is going to run out some day, and it seems it already is.”

Merry Christmas, Mr. Putin, from your friends in the GOP.

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Biden campaign: House GOP follows Trump’s ‘marching orders’ with bogus impeachment

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Joan McCarter

The Biden campaign blasted House Republicans Tuesday for being “an arm of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign” in a memo shared with news organizations. The bogus impeachment resolution Speaker Mike Johnson okayed is expected to come to the floor for a vote this week.

Johnson took his “marching orders” from Trump, Biden-Harris 2024 communications director Michael Tyler said in the memo. “The only branch of government MAGA Republicans control is following through on Donald Trump’s promise to use the levers of government to enact political retribution on his enemies,” Tyler said. “You know, like the followers of a dictator.”

“The only, single fact in this entire sham impeachment exercise is that it’s a nakedly transparent ploy by House MAGA Republicans to boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” Tyler wrote. Johnson “is firmly in Donald Trump’s pocket and taking his marching orders from him and Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Tyler said, adding, “It’s no small coincidence Johnson did a complete about-face and announced his plans to bring an impeachment vote days after he endorsed Trump and flew down to Mar-a-Lago to meet privately with the former president.”

That’s all true, and the Republicans in the House are lining up to be the would-be dictator’s foot soldiers. Just one of them is publicly opposed to the impeachment resolution: Freedom Caucus member Ken Buck of Colorado, ironically. “Republicans in the House who are itching for an impeachment are relying on an imagined history,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post in September. He told Politico last week that he hasn’t “seen any new evidence” to make him change his position.

The supposed “moderate” swing-district Republicans, known as the Biden 17 (it used to be 18, including expelled Rep. George Santos) are pretending this is a valid investigation and it’s all about process and their oversight duty. “The administration would do well by honoring the subpoenas of the committees and participating in the investigation. If what is necessary to ensure oversight is this next step, then I’m certainly open to it,” Rep. Marc Molinaro of New York told Politico.

The Biden campaign and House Democrats have warned those supposed moderates about what this means for their political future. "Trump says jump, the MAGA extremists say 'how high?'” Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said Tuesday. “Donald Trump asks them to impeach Joe Biden, and here we are ... when this is all over, I'm confident that the American people will overwhelmingly agree that this whole impeachment stunt is a national disgrace."

A House Republican tells the truth about the push to impeach Biden

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ICYMI: Judge says woman can get abortion, Texas AG loses his mind

Posted on December 9, 2023 by kos

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is out of control

Only hours after a judge ruled to allow a Texas woman facing a nonviable, life-threatening pregnancy to seek an abortion, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened hospitals and doctors with both civil and criminal penalties if they comply with the judge’s ruling.

When possible, Republicans have enacted some of the most extreme abortion bans, and Texas has among the worst. But cases like this one, which expose the GOP’s cruel and heartless attitudes toward women, have further galvanized national opposition to the bans. They’re also giving Democrats ammunition heaving into an election cycle with a generally favorable environment.

In fact, Paxton’s unhinged response is beyond absurd, and must be read to be believed.

This week’s most-read stories

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GOP impeachment resolution: A circus without substance

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House Republicans released the text of their resolution authorizing their impeachment probe on Thursday, then left for the weekend. Note that the resolution doesn’t state why they intend to impeach President Joe Biden. Because there is no reason. This just formalizes the circus in the Judiciary, Oversight, and Ways and Means committees.

Speaker Mike Johnson gave the green light to this, justifying it by saying that the White House is “stonewalling” the committee’s efforts to concoct high crimes and misdemeanors out of thin air, making this “a necessary constitutional step.” The House Rules Committee is taking the resolution up next Tuesday, and the House as a whole will probably vote on it before leaving that Thursday or Friday for the rest of the year.

Today in Congress: Johnson’s inexperience showing; Ukraine stalemate continues

Posted on December 7, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on a major defense and national security policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, on Wednesday. It’s likely to be the only legislative accomplishment they achieve before leaving for the the end of the year, if it does indeed pass. The bill authorizes nearly $900 billion in defense and national security, though it doesn’t include funding—it just directs where the eventual funding bill will be spent. What the new House-Senate conference report doesn’t do is overturn the Pentagon’s abortion policy or strip health care from transgender troops.

That’s enough to have members of the hard-right House, which loaded their version of the bill up with all those toxic provisions, howling and vowing to vote against the bill. The bigger problem in the House, though, is Speaker Mike Johnson’s bungling of another provision in the NDAA. The conference committee decided to add a short-term extension of the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers in the bill, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, after several misfires on the issue from Johnson.

In the course of the last week or so, Johnson has taken three different positions on getting that done. On Nov. 29, he said he wanted to include an extension of it until Feb. 2. Then on Tuesday of this week, he told the GOP conference that he would put two competing reauthorization bills—one from House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan and another from House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner—on the floor in a head-to-head matchup. Whichever bill got the most votes would be sent to the Senate. Punchbowl News reported that he had instructed the members of the defense authorization conference to keep the FISA extension out of the bill, and “got cheers from conservatives for this statement.” Then on Wednesday, he made a complete about-face, agreeing to include an extension of the surveillance powers until April.

That same day, Jordan’s committee passed his bipartisan overhaul of FISA in committee by a 35-2 margin. Jordan had every expectation of his bill passing and wanted it to go to the floor next week, as he thought Johnson had promised. That’s precisely the kind of indecision and flip-flopping that already has Johnson in trouble with his fractious caucus, and since they are all unappeasable, it’s not going to get any better for him.

The Senate took up the defense authorization on Thursday with the initial procedural vote, which gives Johnson the weekend to try to smooth ruffled feathers and get the bill done on their side next week, likely the last substantive thing that will happen before they leave for Christmas.

That’s the worry for Ukraine and other countries in need of aid: that the House will leave town before the Senate passes its $110.5 billion supplemental foreign assistance package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. There’s been no advance in the stalemate on that issue since GOP senators threw their border security tantrum Tuesday. It’s looking likelier by the day that the urgently needed aid for Ukraine is not going to be passed before the end of the year.

And when Congress returns in January, as Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington reminds everyone, they’re going to have to get serious about passing government funding. Her concern is that Johnson’s supposed fallback proposal—to just extend current funding until the end of the fiscal year—will end up being the default. "It’s dangerous and a non-starter," the Senate Appropriations Committee chair told Politico Wednesday. "Everybody needs to understand that it’s dangerous, and we can’t go there."

She’s right to be worried. The budget agreement that President Joe Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy made back in May tried to avert just that eventuality by levying cuts if lawmakers extended funding with continuing resolutions. The $777 billion now budgeted for non-defense programs would plummet to $704 billion if regular funding bills aren’t passed.

Murray is also right to be worried that it’s Johnson in charge of figuring this out for the House. His combination of inexperience and arrogance makes him an unpredictable and dangerous negotiating partner.

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Hunter Biden’s lawyer explains exactly why Biden will only testify publicly

Posted on December 6, 2023 by Laura Clawson

Hunter Biden’s offer to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee left Republicans struggling to explain why they don’t want him talking publicly and are demanding a closed-door deposition. Their demands have not been compelling, and Biden’s lawyer reiterated that he will appear in public or not at all.

"As indicated in my November 28, 2023, letter, Mr. Biden has offered to appear at a hearing on the December 13, 2023, date you have reserved, or another date this month, to answer any question pertinent and relevant to the subject matter stated in your November 8, 2023, letter," Biden’s letter, Abbe Lowell, wrote in a letter to Oversight Chair James Comer.

Lowell did not mince words about why that is: "He is making this choice because the Committee has demonstrated time and again it uses closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public—a hearing would ensure transparency and truth in these proceedings."

This comes days after Comer tried to sell the public on a claim that he’d proven that President Joe Biden had profited from his son’s business dealings—because the son had repaid the father slightly more than $4,000 for a car loan.

That kind of wild misrepresentation of reality is exactly why Hunter Biden needs to do whatever it takes to avoid speaking to Comer behind closed doors. Comer is a brazen liar and no matter what Biden said in a private deposition, Comer would be on Fox News and Newsmax within hours, claiming he had proof that the president is corrupt. Only after a few days of headlines about Comer’s claims would the truth come out, at which point it would get a fraction of the media attention that the lies had gotten. That’s Comer’s plan. It’s how House Republicans are selling impeachment. All Hunter Biden can do is try not to feed into it.

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Markos and Kerry give their thoughts on what the country is facing in 2024. The Republican Party is running on losing issues like abortion and repealing the ACA—with no explanation of what they plan on replacing it with. Trump has a lot of criming to atone for, and the Republican platform remains set on destroying democracy.

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Comer’s latest bombshell may be his worst dud yet

Posted on December 5, 2023 by Laura Clawson

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer dropped what was supposed to be a big bombshell on Monday. As he put it, “Hunter Biden's business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden.” The response he was looking for was: “Direct monthly payments! Wow, sounds like evidence of corruption to me!” The response he got was: “Uh, that was car payments Hunter was making after his father got him a vehicle at a time when his credit was in the toilet. And it was three monthly payments of $1,380. And Joe Biden was not in office at the time.”

Here’s The Washington Post, apparently having lost all patience for Comer’s misleading claims. Headline: “Comer mischaracterizes Hunter Biden car payment reimbursement to his dad.” Opening paragraph:

As House Republicans move toward a floor vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry against President Biden, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has again mischaracterized evidence of payments from Hunter Biden to his father.

It goes on like that, tying Comer’s claims on this story to his broader pattern: “Comer has consistently oversold or misrepresented the committee’s investigative findings as he has argued to initiate impeachment proceedings.”

Here’s a headline from the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal: “GOP Sees Skulduggery in Hunter Biden Paying His Father Back for Truck.”

As House Republicans move toward a floor vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry … this is probably not the kind of coverage they want that effort to be getting. What’s more, as Rep. Jamie Raskin noted, it's not even new. The Murdoch-owned New York Post reported those car payments in 2022.

Nonetheless, Comer got himself in front of a Newsmax camera Monday evening to try to make fetch happen. He was determined to make those car loan repayments look like evidence of corruption, no matter how foolish it made him look. (Extremely foolish.)

“You can loan people money,” Comer said. “If they pay you back, then you benefited directly.” I mean, you benefited in the sense that you did not lose the money, but you did not profit. That would be quite the redefinition of corruption: avoiding losing money on loans to family members.

Comer also said, “when my son needs help, or my daughter who’s in college needs it, I just give her money. Nobody ever pays me back.” And as we all know, if you personally do not expect your children in their teens or early 20s to repay you for a car, then no one could possibly expect their nearly 50-year-old son to repay them for a car loan. This stuff really shows the degree to which Comer is just blurting out nonsense without thinking things through. But let’s turn to some pictures to fully get the contrast here. Here’s Comer and his kids over the weekend:

Here’s Hunter and Joe Biden getting that truck for which Hunter paid his dad back:

Lordy, there are pictures https://t.co/aQPNGTYQhL pic.twitter.com/jl9Nwd6UVT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 4, 2023

One of these is a picture of a grown-ass man, while the others show people of an age to pick up some lawnmowing or babysitting jobs for extra cash. Almost a year after Hunter and Joe Biden got that truck, Comer’s son—who is now taller than him—didn't reach his shoulder. Can Comer not see the difference between a teenager and an adult? Or is this just one more measure of his dishonesty?

The president must be thrilled at this latest evidence of “corruption.” Comer looks like such a lying partisan hack, the media is losing patience, and this is the story Republicans launched to propel themselves into a vote on an impeachment inquiry. This impeachment inquiry is going to increase public sympathy for Biden as he comes under one baseless, nasty attack after another. Republicans are going to remind us again and again that the president is a father who has loved and supported his troubled son through thick and thin—but also expected him to pay for his own vehicle as he was able. Joe Biden is the decent, compassionate father of an extremely troubled son, and Republicans keep trying to use that as an attack on him. This is not a course of action that’s going to benefit from more exposure and attention.

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White House has things to say as Speaker Johnson reverses course on impeachment inquiry

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Laura Clawson

House Republicans are moving toward a vote on a formal impeachment inquiry as they continue to allege, without evidence, serious corruption on the part of President Joe Biden. The evidence has not gotten stronger since mid-November, when House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly told so-called Republican moderates that there was “insufficient evidence” to move forward. The politics, however, have changed. Johnson’s move to keep the government from shutting down angered some extremist Republicans, and the expulsion of George Santos just after Johnson declared his opposition to expulsion did not make Johnson look any stronger. Giving the extremists a vote on an impeachment inquiry is an easy way for Johnson to try to shore up support.

The White House is vigorously pointing out the political calculations behind a vote on an impeachment inquiry. "Under fire for expelling George Santos, Speaker Johnson is throwing red meat to Marjorie Taylor Greene and the far right flank of the House GOP by pushing a full House vote on this illegitimate impeachment stunt," White House spokesperson Ian Sams told The Messenger.

"He admitted there is no evidence to justify it three weeks ago, but he’s doing it anyway — further proof that this whole exercise is an extreme political stunt, rather than a legitimate pursuit of the truth," Sams told The Messenger, excoriating Johnson and his flock for a "baseless smear campaign" that he said is "solely intended to satisfy their most extreme members."

Johnson has been consistent in publicly claiming that Republicans have a strong case against Biden, even as he admitted to members of his conference that there was “insufficient evidence.” Now, House Republicans are preparing to escalate their baseless inquiry and thereby escalate their harassment of Biden—leading into an election year.

The politics on an impeachment inquiry vote are clear, as former Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged, saying on “Fox & Friends,” “If you’re a Republican, do you really want to guarantee a primary opponent by voting against it?” Gingrich went on to offer up the regular Republican talking points, claiming that Biden is corrupt, but that sentence right there is going to be the basis for at least a few Republican votes on an impeachment inquiry—and with the razor-thin margin Republicans have in the House, that could be the decisive factor.

Republicans are set to move toward impeachment. But their evidence remains even thinner than their House majority, and many of them know it. Partisanship reigns above everything for them.

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The honeymoon is ending for Mike Johnson

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Laura Clawson

House Republicans got rid of one speaker (with Democratic help) and then ran through most of their available candidates before successfully replacing him. They probably don’t want to do that again, at least until the memory fades a little, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop being fractured, ego-driven monsters whose go-to strategy is legislative vandalism. All of which is to say, current Speaker Mike Johnson came in with a warm glow of giddy Republican approval around him, but he’s already taking some pretty harsh criticism.

“He continues to play games,” Rep. Max Miller told Politico. “We are talking about a man [who] 30 days ago said that he was an anti-CR guy. We are talking about a man 30 days ago that was anti-Ukraine funding. ... It shows me he was never really morally convicted in his positions to begin with.”

Miller was an ally of ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, so he may not have been inclined to give Johnson as much benefit of the doubt as some. But going on the record to call a speaker from your own party a “joke” whose strategic decisions and shifting positions have been “disgusting,” “fucking dumb,” and “a slap in the face to every Jew” is an unusual move. It suggests that Miller isn’t worried about retaliation.

Rep. Andy Biggs was one of the eight Republicans who voted to boot McCarthy. He is, like Johnson, on the far right of the House Republican conference. Talking to Politico, he rated Johnson in grade-school report card terms as “needing improvement” and “unsatisfactory results.”

Rep. Chip Roy, also on the far right, rated Johnson’s performance as “plummeting.”

Johnson continues to have allies, and many on the far right of House Republicans continue to see him as one of their own. There’s no talk (yet) of replacing him, and he’s shoring himself up through his continuing support for impeaching President Joe Biden. But it’s significant that the biggest thing Johnson did to anger his fellow Republicans is … try to keep the government open for a few more months. The Freedom Caucus has grudgingly conceded they need to go along with the basic effort to keep the government from shutting down, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it, or with the guy who got them here.

Right now, Johnson is trying to walk the line between extreme enough to keep the Freedom Caucus and its ilk happy but not so overtly extreme that he completely blows up Republican chances next November. He’s getting away with it, but like every other recent Republican speaker, it’s clear that he’s not leading his party so much as trying to thread one needle after another without stumbling into a full-on rebellion. And many members of his party continue on unchanged by the experience of McCarthy’s ouster and the ensuing chaos. Their egos and determination to get attention by causing trouble will never take a rest.

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Category: House

Vulnerable House Republicans jump on Trump train with impeachment vote

Congress wraps for the year, after giving Putin a Christmas gift

Biden campaign: House GOP follows Trump’s ‘marching orders’ with bogus impeachment

ICYMI: Judge says woman can get abortion, Texas AG loses his mind

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This week’s most-read stories

GOP impeachment resolution: A circus without substance

Today in Congress: Johnson’s inexperience showing; Ukraine stalemate continues

Hunter Biden’s lawyer explains exactly why Biden will only testify publicly

Comer’s latest bombshell may be his worst dud yet

White House has things to say as Speaker Johnson reverses course on impeachment inquiry

The honeymoon is ending for Mike Johnson