ICYMI: Republicans reveal the smoking (cap) gun in Biden impeachment inquiry

Posted on December 5, 2023 by kos

Monday’s theme? Republican weakness

Republicans don’t seem to be trying very hard as we head into the December holidays.

The Republican effort in the House to impeach President Joe Biden took a new step forward before quickly taking two steps back. Rep. James Comer sure thought he’d found the smoking gun, but his latest claims were debunked in record time, and we could feel secondhand humiliation from here.

Meanwhile, Republicans are dipping their toes into the world of “deepfakes” and artificial intelligence with a new scare campaign aimed at America’s beloved national parks.

And finally, some Republicans are starting to recognize the sustained damage Donald Trump has done to the GOP over the past seven or so years.

These stories are all signs of the weakness of the Republican platform going into 2024. With no evidence of any crimes by Biden, Republicans are throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks in order to keep their conspiracy-lovin' base happy.

Rep. James Comer’s newest ‘smoking gun’ debunked in record time

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

Rep. James Comer put a considerable amount of product in his hair Monday before recording a video claiming to have new smoking-gun evidence of President Joe Biden’s corruption. Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, dramatically announced that “Hunter Biden's legal team and the White House's media allies claim Hunter's corporate entities never made payments directly to Joe Biden. We can officially add this latest talking point to the list of lies. Today, the House Oversight Committee is releasing subpoenaed bank records that show Hunter Biden's business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden.”

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Sounds devastating. Right-wing media outlets excitedly pushed out the details, specifically that Hunter Biden set up “recurring payments” of $1,380 in late 2018. Besides being an extraordinarily small amount of money in the grand scheme of corruption, the thinnest digging revealed that Joe Biden was not president in 2018. In fact, deeper investigation reveals that Biden wasn’t even in any political office at the time!

Receipts were then posted that revealed Hunter Biden was paying his father back for helping to cover car payments while he was in between jobs. The three monthly payments totaled $4,140.

Thx to @yashar and @Fritschner for the heads up: these were reimbursements to Biden for car payments on a truck that Biden has paid while Hunter changed career paths. Big ol’ swing and a miss https://t.co/utabINBNWL pic.twitter.com/1LdwNj7sRB
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) December 4, 2023

Selling out our country for three monthly payments of $1,380, eh? Comer’s list of embarrassments and Rep. Jim Jordan’s disastrous failure of an impeachment inquiry continues to float about as high as a whoopee cushion filled with water. In fact, every single smoking gun these guys announce seems to prove that President Joe Biden has been a very supportive father. He sure hasn’t helped his son-in-law get $2 billion in Saudi money, but we all can’t be that good at “winning.”

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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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When good news about the economy triggers a bad news media vibe

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

The media spent the bulk of last year assuring Americans a recession was imminent. But not only has that much-ballyhooed recession failed to materialize, news also broke this week that the U.S. economy grew 5.2% in the third quarter—the fastest pace of growth in almost two years.

Good news! The notably robust growth, an upward revision from a previous government estimate of 4.9%, looks pretty sick (“cool” in kid slang) in this U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis bar graph comparing quarterly reports over the last year.

But wait, it gets better! The White House touted even more good news on Thursday:

Annual inflation fell to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years.
Monthly inflation was zero (zip, nada, nothing).
Gas prices have fallen by $1.77 since they peaked after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
Prices for eggs and milk are down over the past year.

To put a finer point on inflation easing: Personal consumption expenditures fell to 3% year over year in October—the lowest PCE inflation rate since March 2021. In graph form, it looks like inflation ascended a mighty hilltop over the past two years, peaking last summer, and nearly returning to the flatlands in October.

More good news on the economy today: Annual inflation fell to its lowest level since March 2021 and monthly inflation was zero. President Biden will not stop fighting to lower costs for hardworking families. pic.twitter.com/wdoOf3uMb5
— Jeff Zients (@WHCOS) November 30, 2023

Don't worry, though, the dogged media is determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, come hell or high water.

Following news that consumer spending rose again in October, University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers posed a challenge to reporters and analysts.

"There's been about a million think pieces asking 'why are people so miserable about the economy,'" Wolfers tweeted Thursday, "but I'm yet to see one grapple with the fact that folks are spending as if they're actually pretty optimistic about their economic futures."

There's been about a million think pieces asking "why are people so miserable about the economy," but I'm yet to see one grapple with the fact that folks are spending as if they're actually pretty optimistic about their economic futures. https://t.co/Y7d7xwtR6n
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) November 30, 2023

Turns out Wolfers was a day too late. CNBC had already met the challenge with a piece titled "Americans are 'doom spending' — here's why that's a problem.”

Hear that? Dooooooooooom spending! It's over, folks—pull up the covers, close your eyes, and retreat back to more comforting times, like when you were wiping down all your groceries to ensure they were plague-free.

The fanciful phrase "doom spending" appears to have been dreamed up by the credit monitoring service Credit Karma, and then mass distributed by CNBC:

Nearly all Americans, 96%, are concerned about the current state of the economy, according to a recent report by Intuit Credit Karma.

Still, more than a quarter are “doom spending,” or spending money despite economic and geopolitical concerns, the report found. ...

“Much like doom scrolling, we’re seeing people mindlessly shop to soothe concerns about the economy and foreign affairs, which could take a toll on their financial wellbeing,” Courtney Alev, Credit Karma’s consumer financial advocate, told CNBC.

Sorry, Wolfers—asked and answered. People are apparently so miserable, they are raining down money on the economy. It's dreadful stuff.

Not to be outdone, the Gray Lady's flagship podcast, ”The Daily,” dropped a 22-minute episode Thursday titled "The Bad Vibes Around a Good Economy." Sure, we may have escaped the long-promised recession on the policy side, but the whole economic vibe is just a downer right now, folks. Case in point: increased spending.

Thank goodness the media is here to tell us why we can’t have nice things—just in time for the holidays.

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There has been a ton of coverage in recent weeks over a streak of poor 2024 polling for Democrats and Target Smart’s Tom Bonier joins us to help us separate the wheat from the chaff. We talk about what to take from these polls and how to balance them against the much more positive election results we’ve seen this year. We also discuss how early voting data continues to evolve and how Sen. Sherrod Brown’s campaign will use Ohio’s recent abortion and marijuana referendums to find new persuadable voters next year.

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President Biden drinks shake through straw, Fox loses it, Jimmy Kimmel claps back

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

We’ve finally found a presidential scandal to rival Teapot Dome, Watergate, and the legion of horrors Donald Trump visited on our heads that somehow got memory-holed faster than Barack Obama’s tan suit. Sure, Trump may have ignored a deadly pandemic and tried to overthrow the U.S. government before spending the next three years working on a children’s version of “Mein Kampf” (and by “working on,” we of course mean “reading”), but at least he’d never drink a milkshake through a straw. Right?

Jesse Waters, who gets to keep his job because everyone at Fox loves his elfin whimsy and annual batch of fresh-baked Krampus cookies, has at least found the load-bearing Jenga piece that will end Joe Biden’s presidency once and for all. And late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is here to give you all the sweet and sticky details.

You see, Biden recently drank a milkshake through a straw. A straw! What real, red-blooded American drinks things through straws? What would the Founding Fathers think? Ben Franklin would have never used a straw! He was far too busy doing tequila body shots off French courtesans.

Watch:

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KIMMEL: “It’s like you can’t give your opponents an inch, and these guys are so desperate to smear Joe Biden, they are literally now grasping at straws.”

WATTERS (VOICEOVER): “DailyMail.com caught Biden sucking on what looks like a milkshake through a straw. Could be a smoothie. Looked like chocolate to me. Now, a little advice for grown men. If you want to enjoy a milkshake or anything with a straw, please do it in private. It’s not a good look. Men should never suck anything through a straw.”

KIMMEL: “Really? Is that a thing now? Anyone feel like Jesse Watters might be going through some sort of an identity crisis? Real men dump their milkshakes all over their nipples. They don’t use straws.”

SHOWS PHOTO OF TRUMP DRINKING THROUGH A STRAW

KIMMEL: “Oh, oh no. Oh, my God. Oh, Jesse, you better apologize to President Tastee-Freez right now.”

So that picture of Trump might make it look like Watters is just being a hypocritical arse, but you’re ignoring some key context. Biden was drinking a milkshake, and while we don’t know for certain what Trump had in his cup, preliminary analysis based on Trump’s uncharacteristic devotion to the task points to a 97.9% probability that it’s lard. And lard is a lot harder to suck than milkshakes, obvi. So suck on that, Joe Biden.

Of course, there’s also the inconvenient fact that Trump not only uses straws but also sold straws for a time to raise funds for whatever it is he raises funds for. (Mostly campaigning, defending himself against a raft of felony charges, and attempting to corner the global lard market.)

The Guardian, July 2019:

In the race to raise as much cash as possible ahead of the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s campaign has hit on a novel, and successful, idea: selling plastic straws.

Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said last week that his team has raked in almost $500,000 in one week from selling Trump branded, “laser engraved”, nine-inch long straws.

It’s a tidy sum and, given Trump’s six corporate bankruptcies, string of failed companies, and ability to lose more than $1bn between 1985 and 1994, the straw selling may rank as one of the president’s most successful business ventures.

But while Biden’s brazen flouting of well-established milkshake norms may not rise to the level of impeachment just yet, you shouldn’t rule anything out. Rep. James Comer, House Oversight Committee chairman, is on the hunt for silly accusations that appear more or less plausible to Jäger-besotted MAGAs who tune into Watters’ show every night because they think he’s Paul Harvey.

Then again, if we don’t hold the line at straws in milkshakes, what’s next? At some point, Biden might whip out a spoon. Or even a spork! And then where will we be? On the threshold of tyranny. Or Culver’s. Whichever. Either way, this is clearly bad for Joe Biden.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

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House Republicans continue wasting time instead of governing

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Joan McCarter

The Republican House of Representatives is spinning its wheels Thursday over minor legislation that’s going nowhere, including yet another racist bill to deny housing for immigrants on federal lands. House Speaker Mike Johnson is instead focused on fundraising with big-money people in Washington, D.C., and New York. The fundraising is necessary for House Republicans since it’s been lagging since they toppled former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, their money juggernaut.

That fundraising Johnson's doing in New York includes ”the annual Bright Lights on Broadway fundraiser for the National Republican Congressional Committee, [and] … two events for the New York delegation and three receptions for embattled New York Republicans in their districts: freshman Reps. Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito and Mike Lawler,” according to The Washington Post. That might be why some of those particular Republicans representing districts that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 are just fine with moving ahead on an historically specious impeachment inquiry. Because they are moving fast on impeachment.

While Republicans don’t have any evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, they’ve got a new website to track all the stuff they’ve made up in the various committees. And they’re talking about moving on it formally before the Christmas break. They might not have enough Republican votes to authorize it, but so far that doesn’t seem to be slowing them down.

Unfortunately for them, the House GOP is also having to figure out how to deal with Rep. George Santos, who is almost certainly going to be expelled in a vote Friday, after debate Thursday. Johnson doesn’t want to have this vote, but Santos has given his colleagues no choice. He refuses to leave of his own volition and he’s refusing as messily as possible.

Over on the Senate side Thursday, the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on advancing a handful of judicial nominees and on issuing subpoenas to Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow, the fixer and the mega-donor, respectively, who are tied up with the corruption scandals surrounding Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. That committee is where all the worst people in the GOP Senate have congregated, and they were in full, obnoxious form Thursday to fight those subpoenas and stand up for conservative corruption, including bringing 177 amendments.

Before they could even get to the subpoenas, Republicans tried to shout down Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois, when he tried to advance the first nominee. All of the nominees have had hearings and debate, giving every senator two previous chances to talk about the nominees. Durbin pointed this out as he tried to limit debate. The performative outrage then commenced.

“Mr. Chairman, you just destroyed one of the most important committees in the United States Senate,” Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn yelled. “Congratulations on destroying the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.” Tennessee’s dimmest Senate bulb, Marsha Blackburn, shouted, “You want us to shut up?” Arkansas’ Tom Cotton jumped in with, “I guess Durbin isn’t going to allow women to speak, I thought that was sacrosanct in your party.”

In other words, it’s business as usual for congressional Republicans.

Cartoon: Santos Claus

House Republican fundraising takes a dive under MAGA Mike's leadership, god bless him

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Republican favorability ratings in battleground districts sink even lower

Posted on November 30, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

As House Republicans weigh launching an impeachment proceeding against President Joe Biden for who the hell knows what, new polling shows nearly 7 in 10 voters (68%) in battleground congressional districts across the country believe House Republicans have prioritized “the wrong things," while just 20% say they have prioritized the right things.

The findings come from a Navigator Research survey of 61 battleground districts in late October. And the poll suggests that sentiment is shared at roughly the same rate among voters represented by Democratic and Republican incumbents alike.

Voters' assessments of House Republican priorities have also plummeted since July, when Republicans were just 16 percentage points underwater on the question versus being 48 points underwater now—a net shift of -32 points in only three months.

Republican incumbents in Biden-won districts also have a net -10 favorability rating among their constituents (34% favorable, 44% unfavorable).

But wait, there's more: Republican incumbents in Trump-won districts are also underwater in terms of both favorability (-4 points on net, 41% favorable to 45% unfavorable) and job approval (-6 points, 37% favorable to 43% unfavorable).

Navigator says these are House Republicans' lowest ratings since the group's first battleground survey in April.

By contrast, throughout Navigator’s battleground series this year, Democratic incumbents have remained above water and improved over time. In this latest survey, Democratic incumbents are 9 points above water on favorability (42% to 33%) and 8 points above water on job approval (40% to 32%).

Survey responses continued to highlight economic anxiety among voters across the districts, with a 48% plurality rating the economy as "poor," and 54% expressing concern over being able to set aside money for savings. Inflation and the cost of goods remain key concerns.

When taking stock of their personal financial situation, however, 54% rated it positively, with 7% saying "excellent" and 47% saying "good."

But whatever their economic outlook, battleground voters overwhelmingly believe Republicans have not prioritized the economy, with 70% saying they haven't focused on economic issues, compared with just 17% who say they have.

With some 70% of battleground voters agreeing Republicans have prioritized “the wrong things" and haven't focused enough on economic issues, Republicans have the perfect fix: impeachment.

What’s that old phrase, again? It's the impeachment, stupid. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

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ICYMI: Media sleeps as Trump blatantly disregards constitutional norms

Posted on November 30, 2023 by kos

Why is the media ignoring Trump's direct threats to our Constitution?

Donald Trump keeps threatening our nation’s democracy in no uncertain terms, and yet the nation’s media insists on treating his proclamations as spectacle, when they’re not outright ignoring him.

Take Trump’s fascist declaration that his potential next administration would “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” Historians have noted the alarming similarities to Adolf Hitler’s and Benito Mussolini’s eliminationist rhetoric, yet a Media Matters for America analysis found that our media could barely be bothered to care. Indeed, comparing the media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment to Trump’s “vermin” comment is … just go look for yourself.

Well, now he’s threatening the media, promising in a social media post to “come down hard” on MSNBC for its “constant attacks” on him. Clearly, Trump has no use for the First Amendment or the Constitution in general. Yet, can we expect the media to rally around its freedoms by calling out such outrageous threats? Don’t hold your breath. The media has a history of ignoring his threats, after all. If only his name were Hillary Clinton, perhaps then they’d be more suitably outraged.

Cheney’s new book is a devastating indictment of Republican efforts to overturn 2020

Posted on November 29, 2023 by Kerry Eleveld

In her new book, former Rep. Liz Cheney unloads on her former colleagues in the Republican Party, and to no one's surprise, her disgust is seething and deep.

"Oath and Honor," which was obtained by CNN, serves as an overarching indictment of the many Republicans Cheney deems most responsible for gifting the GOP to the twice-impeached, four-time criminally indicted Donald Trump, whom she calls “the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office.”

“As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution," writes Cheney, who served as the number three House Republican before being ousted from leadership over her vote to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol.

According to the book, then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Cheney following the 2020 election that Trump knew he had lost. “He knows it’s over,” McCarthy reportedly said at the time. “He needs to go through all the stages of grief.”

Yet that same day, Cheney reveals, McCarthy fanned the election-denial flames on Fox News, telling viewers, "President Trump won this election."

Cheney writes, "McCarthy knew that what he was saying was not true.” So much for virtue.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a pro-Trump MAGA stalwart, derided the legal avenues for challenging the election results, saying, “The only thing that matters is winning,” according to Cheney. So much for honor.

Cheney also shredded Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana in the book, which she finished writing before he was elevated to speaker. Johnson, she said, pressured his Republican colleagues to sign on to an amicus brief supporting his legal challenge to 2020 results.

“When I confronted him with the flaws in his legal arguments," Cheney writes, "Johnson would often concede, or say something to the effect of, ‘We just need to do this one last thing for Trump.'" So much for the rule of law.

Fast-forward to Nov. 29, 2023, and Johnson contrasting Republicans' ham-handed effort to impeach President Joe Biden with what he framed as Democrats' "brazenly political" impeachment of Trump for springing a violent coup attempt on the U.S. Capitol.

"What you are seeing here is exactly the opposite. We are the rule-of-law team—the Republican Party stands for the rule of law," Johnson told reporters Wednesday, touting his work to defend Trump against Democrats’ "meritless" impeachment proceedings.

Speaker Mike Johnson claims that both of Donald Trump's impeachments were “brazenly political” and “meritless,” but says the GOP's efforts to impeach Joe Biden are “just the opposite” because “the Republican Party stands for the rule of law.” pic.twitter.com/vqpjqbPnbk
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 29, 2023

Just a quick trip to Republicans' present day house-of-mirrors routine as the majority party in the House. Now, back to the book.

Perhaps the most chilling part of CNN's write-up was Cheney's recollection of House Republicans' methodical efforts to reject the will of the people in 2020. Here’s CNN:

On Jan. 6, before the attack on the Capitol, Cheney describes a scene in the GOP cloakroom, where members were encouraged to sign their names on electoral vote objection sheets, lined up on a table, one for each of the states Republicans were contesting. Cheney writes most members knew “it was a farce” and “another public display of fealty to Donald Trump.”
“Among them was Republican Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee,” Cheney writes. “As he moved down the line, signing his name to the pieces of paper, Green said sheepishly to no one in particular, ‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.’”

So much for fealty to the Constitution.

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Mike Johnson gives the game away in Biden impeachment: It’s revenge

Posted on November 29, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Mike Johnson pretended Wednesday that Republicans have any basis at all for moving forward on impeaching President Joe Biden, and that this is a serious inquiry. Johnson soberly intoned that the Republicans understand “impeachment requires time … You don’t rush something like this.”

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Meanwhile, House Republican leadership told members that they’ll be taking a formal vote on impeachment in the next few weeks, possibly in January. That’s even while their plans for a hearing with their primary witness, Hunter Biden, are crumbling around them. Johnson laughably praised the committee chairs for conducting their circus “methodically and transparently,” when right now they’re trying to force Hunter Biden’s testimony to happen behind closed doors.

Johnson really gave the game away, though, in a statement that could have come straight from “1984”’s Ministry of Truth. He claimed that both of Donald Trump's impeachments—in which he was on the Trump defense team—were “brazenly political” and “meritless.” The GOP's efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, however, are “just the opposite” because “the Republican Party stands for the rule of law.”

That’s the whole game, right there. It’s not about the rule of law. It’s about revenge for Trump. Period.

This is what happens when a House Republican gets tough questions on Hunter Biden subpoenas

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Category: JoeBiden

ICYMI: Republicans reveal the smoking (cap) gun in Biden impeachment inquiry

More top stories

Rep. James Comer’s newest ‘smoking gun’ debunked in record time

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

When good news about the economy triggers a bad news media vibe

President Biden drinks shake through straw, Fox loses it, Jimmy Kimmel claps back

House Republicans continue wasting time instead of governing

Republican favorability ratings in battleground districts sink even lower

ICYMI: Media sleeps as Trump blatantly disregards constitutional norms

More top stories

Cheney’s new book is a devastating indictment of Republican efforts to overturn 2020

Mike Johnson gives the game away in Biden impeachment: It’s revenge