The Gaetz Of Heck, Con't

A not-so-gentle reminder that many Republicans really hate GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, and that at this point they are more than willing to air his dirty laundry.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-O.K.) claimed on national television Wednesday night that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-F.L.) bragged about chasing down erectile dysfunction medication with an energy drink to prolong his sexual endeavors.

Gaetz brought a motion to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday, and a day later, he and a posse of like-minded Republicans voted to axe the California congressman a day later.

The ousting of McCarthy has left the GOP party in chaos and plenty of ire was directed at Gaetz, as even fellow MAGA loyalists were furious over the ensuing infighting after the GOP left itself with no leader and no clear path forward.

Frustrated with Gaetz’s actions on Wednesday, Mullin unleashed wild allegations against the congressman when speaking to CNN’s Manu Raju outside the Capitol.

Mullin began by saying that after Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl, “the media didn’t give [him] the time of day.” Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing, arguing that bad actors in the Justice Department were trying to ruin his life. That allegation prompted an investigation by the Department of Justice, which decided not to file charges in February.

“And there’s a reason why no one in the Congress came and defended him: Because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with,” Mullin added. “He would brag about how he would crush E.D. medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. This was obviously before he got married.”

He continued, “And so, when that accusation came out, no one defended him. And then no one in the media would give him the time of the day. All of a sudden he found fame because he opposed the speaker of the House back in November. And he’s always stayed there. And he was never gonna leave until he got this last moment of fame by going after a motion to vacate.”

In a statement to CNN read by anchor Anderson Cooper on air, Gaetz denied his colleague’s claim.

“I don’t think Markwayne Mullin and I have said 20 words to each other on the House floor. This is a lie from someone who doesn’t know me and who is coping with the death of the political career of his friend Kevin,” Gaetz’s statement read. “Thoughts and prayers.”

 

And while the DoJ investigation into Gaetz has been dropped, the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz has been going for over two years now, and there's a growing movement (powered by Newt Gingrich of all people) to expel Gaetz based on the results of the probe. 

Whether that happens, well, all bets are off here.

Last Call For Speaker McCarthy

In the battle of I Dare You To Call My Bluff under the House GOP Clown Show Big Top, GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz gets the last laugh as Kevin McCarthy's speakership goes down in infamy and up in flames.

Kevin McCarthy will not run for speaker again after the House ousted him from the top leadership post in a historic vote on Tuesday, a move that threatens to plunge House Republicans into even further chaos and turmoil.

The House will now need to elect a new speaker. There is no clear alternative to McCarthy who would have the support needed to win the gavel, but the race for a potential successor is already underway.

The vote to oust McCarthy and his decision not to run for the speakership again marks a major escalation in tensions for a House GOP conference that has been mired in infighting – and it comes just days after McCarthy successfully engineered a last-minute bipartisan effort to avert a government shutdown. No House speaker has ever before been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them.

“I don’t regret standing up for choosing governing over grievance. It is my responsibility. It is my job. I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise,” McCarthy said at a wide-ranging press conference Tuesday evening.

McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju he “might” endorse a successor and did not say whether he would remain in Congress. “I’ll look at that,” he said when asked.

A number of House Republicans are said to be considering jumping into the race for speaker. It’s a scramble as House Republicans do not have a plan nor are they unified behind a candidate.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who has been the No. 2 Republican, has started reaching out to members about a potential speakership bid, according to a source familiar.

Immediately following the vote, GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, a top McCarthy ally, was named interim speaker and the House went into recess as Republicans scrambled to find a path forward. The House is expected to stay out of session for the rest of the week, and Republicans are expected to hold a speaker candidate forum in a week.

The effort to oust the speaker was led by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz and comes as a bloc of hardline conservatives continued to rebel against McCarthy, voting against key priorities of GOP leadership and repeatedly throwing up roadblocks to the speaker’s agenda.

A few observances:

Our old friend The Odious Patrick McHenry is now in charge of the circus, but I don't see how anyone has the votes for Speaker right now. Maybe that changes next week, or maybe McHenry stays because nobody else wants the job. It's all off the map now.

Hell, it may take 45 days to come up with a Speaker. Democrats need to point this out on a daily basis: the House GOP is full of children who are going to destroy the country if they are allowed to continue.  This chaos will continue until Republicans are removed from power.

Finally, I'm almost impressed that McCarthy made it this far. I honestly thought he was going to be ousted after the debt ceiling mess, but Gaetz and company chickened out. They didn't this time. As I predicted, the shutdown was avoided, and McCarthy is gone. At this point all other bets are off.

The Gaetz Of Heck, Con't

Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz has made his move, filing a vote to vacate House GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy's position that has to take place by Wednesday.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the Donald Trump ally and conservative bomb-thrower who has been a nagging thorn in leadership’s side, filed a resolution Monday to force a vote to overthrow his political nemesis, Kevin McCarthy, as speaker of the House.

The House must now vote on whether to keep McCarthy on as speaker. It has until Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters on the steps of the Capitol, a beaming Gaetz predicted he has the votes to oust McCarthy — as long as Democrats don’t move to save the speaker.

“I have enough Republicans where, at this point next week, one of two things will happen: Kevin McCarthy won’t be the speaker of the house, or he’ll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats. And I’m at peace with either result, because the American people deserve to know who governs them,” Gaetz said.

During the past two weeks, Gaetz had issued a specific warning to McCarthy, saying he would try to oust him as speaker if he brought a short-term government funding bill to the floor that passed with help from Democrats.

True to his word, Gaetz made the motion to vacate Monday, just two days after McCarthy put a so-called clean continuing resolution, or CR, on the floor to avert a government shutdown, passing it with 209 Democratic votes and 125 Republican votes.

The House floor is normally loud and boisterous. But it was absolutely quiet as Gaetz stood up, buttoned his jacket, approached the well of the House and addressed the chamber Monday evening to announce the motion.

Asked by Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Texas, who was presiding at the time, what his resolution was about, Gaetz replied: "Declaring the office of speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant."

When he finished after about a minute, there was no reaction from the gathered Democrats or the Republicans as he walked away up the aisle.

So, the question is will Democratic House minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries work out a deal to save McCarthy's neck? Steve M. says frankly, no. 

Until a new Speaker is chosen, the House is unlikely to be in the hands of maniacs:

 

Under continuity of Congress procedures enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there is a list of people who can act as speaker pro tempore in an event where the speakership is vacated. This was created in anticipation of a mass casualty event like a terrorist attack, but it would apply if the speakership is vacated. The irony is that list is written by the sitting speaker — so McCarthy knows who is on the list — and it is kept by the House Clerk and only to be made public in the event of a vacancy.This is a list McCarthy compiled knowing it would remain secret until his ouster, so it's unlikely that the list would include Marjorie Taylor Greene or any other bomb-thrower. So if Democrats want to save McCarthy simply in order to keep the House under adult supervision, they should realize that it will probably remain under adult supervision at least through the inevitable multiple votes for a new Speaker.

And they really shouldn't care whether the crazies ultimately win. As I look ahead to 2024, I think it might be bad for President Biden and congressional Democrats that McCarthy and his not-as-crazy caucus keep preventing the country from plunging into utter chaos. If Republicans under McCarthy (and Mitch McConnell) don't appear horribly dangerous, then voters in 2024 are likely to believe they can be trusted to run the country again. That's good for all GOP candidates in 2024, including Donald Trump.

We can have Republican chaos now or worse chaos in 2025 under a reelected Trump and, quite possibly, a GOP-run Congress. I'm in favor of chaos now rather than chaos then.

I have to agree with Steve M. here. Time to let McCarthy sink or swim on his own.

Last Call For The Gaetz Of Heck

With House GOP Clown Wrangler Kevin McCarthy having cut a deal with Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries to punt the shutdown ball 45 days down the field, it's now incumbent upon the House Clown Caucus to make good on their threat to remove McCarthy as House Speaker, and Rep. Matt Gaetz says he'll try to do just that this week.

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” the Florida Republican said he intends to file a motion to vacate this week, which would force a vote on whether McCarthy will keep his job.

“Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January and since then he’s been in brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement,” Gaetz said Sunday. “This agreement that he made with Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we set up is a last straw.”

He added, “I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that will be trustworthy.”

That promise from Gaetz is an escalation in the monthslong standoff between McCarthy and the right flank of his conference, which forced him to go through 15 rounds of votes in January to finally win the speaker’s gavel. As part of winning the top job in the House, McCarthy made a deal that would allow just one member to advance a motion to vacate. That deal has kept the California Republican walking a tight rope with his conference throughout the year as he tried to appease the right-wing of his caucus while also attempting to do the basic work of governing.

McCarthy’s response to Gaetz later on Sunday was straightforward, telling the Floridian to “bring it on.”

“That’s nothing new,” McCarthy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“Yes, I’ll survive. You know, this is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”

He added: “So be it, bring it on. Let’s get over with it and let’s start governing.”

McCarthy’s moment of reckoning may have finally come after President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the bill to keep the government open until mid-November just minutes before funding was set to expire at midnight. McCarthy made a sharp about-face earlier in the day and worked with Democrats to overwhelmingly pass a continuing resolution that would avoid a shutdown. The Senate also passed the bill on a bipartisan basis later on Saturday.

That move by McCarthy could well cost him his job, as Gaetz has been promising almost daily. CNN reported on Friday that Gaetz has been approaching Democrats about potential successors to McCarthy if he were to file a motion to vacate, which would force the House to vote on whether to oust the speaker.

McCarthy has been defiant and on Saturday challenged his detractors to try and push him out of the job.

“If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it,” McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju at a press conference. “There has to be an adult in the room. I am going to govern with what’s best for this country.”

The Florida Republican accused McCarthy of lying in negotiations over the continuing resolution.

“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden, he lied to House conservatives. He had appropriators marking to a different number altogether. And the reason we were backed up against the shutdown politics is not a bug of the system. It’s a feature,” he said.

A senior Democratic source told CNN that most members of their caucus are skeptical about saving McCarthy given that he has shown little interest in working with Democrats and launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

McCarthy, multiple sources said, has yet to reach out to Democratic leaders in a serious negotiation on this issue. But there could be some rank-and-file Democratic moderates who try to find a way to help McCarthy stay in power if they get something in exchange.

Another Democratic source said the caucus will give House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries room to navigate this and the caucus will discuss this week.

Still, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday in a separate interview on “State of the Union” that she would “absolutely” vote to oust McCarthy.

“I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak speaker. He clearly has lost control of his caucus. He has brought the United States and millions of Americans to the brink, waiting until the final hour to keep the government open, and even then only issuing a 45-day extension,” she said.

So now we get to see fully what Rep. Jeffries has learned at the feet of the best House Speaker to ever play this game, Nancy Pelosi. What will the price be for McCarthy to save his job? Can Chuck Schumer get the Senate compromise announced last week passed? Will Mitch McConnell knife McCarthy in the front and scrap any deal, meaning House Dems will pull out and leave McCarthy to the tender mercies of Matt Gaetz? 

I think the latter is the most likely outcome, as I've been saying. If Gaetz can oust McCarthy because McCarthy can't keep his end of the bargain -- and at this point Jeffries and the Dems would be crazy to trust McCarthy at all -- who will replace him?

This is the real show, and it's about to begin.

Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition, Con't

Turns out GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy still doesn't have the votes to pass anything at all as far as keeping the government open as a second attempt to pass a Pentagon funding bill had to be pulled from the House floor, and with the House now in recess, it looks like a GOP-caused shutdown is all but guaranteed.

 

For the second time this week, House Republicans on Thursday failed to start debate on a key military funding bill after five conservative rebels blocked the measure over demands for additional spending cuts.

The defeat marked yet another public embarrassment for Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans as Washington barrels toward a government shutdown. Then, they left town for the week.

"We are very dysfunctional right now," Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said, adding that the failure proves that GOP leaders "obviously can't count" votes, unlike Democrats. "Speaker Pelosi, love her or hate her, she put something out there and they'd rally around it."

McCarthy had vowed that the House would work through the weekend to find a solution to the crisis, with votes expected through Saturday. Now, they've canceled votes for Friday and the weekend, telling members they'll get "ample notice" if any votes are scheduled.

Moderate Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who is facing a tough re-election bid next year, has been describing the GOP dysfunction as a "clown show" and warned that pragmatists would work with Democrats to keep the government funded.

 

Even House Republicans themselves are calling this clown show a clown show! 

"For my colleagues, they have to come to a realization: If they are unable or unwilling to govern, others will. And in a divided government where you have Democrats controlling the Senate, a Democrat controlling the White House, there needs to be a realization that you're not going to get everything you want," he said.

"And just throwing a temper tantrum and stomping your feet, frankly not only is it wrong — it's pathetic," Lawler added.

The House paralysis bodes ill for preventing a government shutdown at the end of September, as Republicans remain unable to pass messaging bills that would represent their opening bid and have no chance of passing the Democratic-led Senate. The infighting could only escalate when they have to make policy compromises to accept a bill that President Joe Biden can sign into law.

“At the end of the day, any final bill is going to be bipartisan. And if somebody doesn’t realize that they’re truly clueless,” Lawler said.

Thursday's vote failed 212-216. The Republicans who voted no were Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia; Dan Bishop of North Carolina; Matt Rosendale of Montana; and Andy Biggs and Eli Crane, both of Arizona. Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., later switched his vote to no, a procedural move that will allow him to bring the bill up again.

“The problem is, we’ve been doing CRs for 25 years or longer. And that works the same way. Lather, rinse, repeat. The Washington wash cycle,” Bishop said. “So there’s another CR and they get to a few days before Christmas and they pass on monstrous omnibus. That’s exactly the path. We all see it, we all recognize it. The only way to change it is to change it.”

 

But of course Republicans don't have the votes to change it, and they could have passed spending bills months ago without a single Democratic vote. They chose not to. 

Republicans are clowns, period. We're all here to watch the Big Top burn down with them -- and America -- in it.

And when the Villagers are openly asking if Kevin McCarthy is even still in charge and worse, answering that question with "No, Matt Gaetz is running the circus now" then yeah, I don't see how McCarthy seriously survives the next few weeks as Speaker. More than ever it feels like the Clown Town kids table is going to have to eat what the adults in the Senate give them, and that McCarthy's going to spend the holidays shooting hoops in his driveway in sweatpants and muttering about how he was A Contenda™.

His only hope is that Matt Gaetz would be so much worse as Speaker that the thought alone might keep him in the office as whipping boy, and in that scenario, McCarthy's just a puppet.

We'll see.

Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition, Con't

House Speaker and Clown Town Ringmaster Kevin McCarthy is running out of time to make a spending bill deal with Democrats before the clowns do him in. WaPo's 202 crew:

Tell us if you’ve heard this one before: The deadline to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month is fast approaching with little sign of how differences will be resolved.

Here’s where things stand in both chambers:

In the House: A half-dozen House Republicans on Sunday proposed a deal to temporarily fund the government until Oct. 31 to buy time for a broader spending agreement.
But it’s far from certain whether the proposal will unite the fractious GOP conference and secure the votes needed to send the bill to the Senate, where it is expected to be rejected, Leigh Ann and our colleague Marianna Sotomayor report.

The tentative agreement is an attempt to appease the conservatives, who held up all progress on government spending until they received assurances on deep spending cuts and other policies, including border restrictions.

But many in the hard-line House Freedom Caucus immediately lambasted the proposal even though Freedom Caucus leaders, Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Chip Roy (R-Tex.) and Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), negotiated the proposal with Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Stephanie I. Bice (R-Okla.) and Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) of the Republican Main Street Caucus, whose members don’t want to shut down the government.

The proposal would lead to immediate, dramatic spending cuts across the federal government, with agency budgets being slashed by 8 percent, except for the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which would be funded at current levels.

The continuing resolution to keep funding the government temporarily would also include a border security bill that House Republicans passed through their narrow ranks in May, while excluding the divisive E-Verify work requirement provision to check immigration status that is opposed by some Republican moderates, especially in New York and California.

If this bill gets a vote and moderates accept it, they are likely to face the possibility of campaign ads highlighting that they voted for deep cuts to programs such as education, food safety and environmental protection.

The goal is to vote on the bill Thursday.

If the proposal makes it through the House, it has zero chance of passing the Senate, and it’s unclear how the two chambers will strike a deal to avoid a shutdown.

 

In other words, McCarthy doesn't even have the votes for an opening offer, while Senate Democrats are hashing out the "real" bill, and the biggest reason is that the hardliner MAGA chuds think 8 percent cuts to the Departments of Education, Energy, Agriculture, Justice, State, and Homeland Security aren't draconian enough.

As to whether McCarthy survives the month without a deal, well, Hakeem Jeffries has some leverage now, doesn't he?

 

McCarthy's biggest problem is he's incompetent. But I don't see how Matt Gaetz is going to talk Jeffries into getting rid of McCarthy when that only makes the prospect of a deal worse. 

We'll see, but we're down to two weeks now, and the prognosis is still that McCarthy shuts down the government and the country will clearly be able to blame him for it, or that he folds and takes the Senate bill with Hakeem Jeffries's help and then gets run out of town like Boehner before him.

He loses either way.

Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition

Usually as we head into the last half of September, we have the annual spending bill battle where Republicans and Democrats work it out and fund the government for another year. Only one problem this time around, and that's because House GOP Speaker Kevin McCarty is such an absolute paperweight of uselessness that the House GOP hasn't managed to pass any spending bills at all, and that the country is headed for an economic nightmare again.

 

House GOP leaders have abandoned efforts to pass an agriculture funding bill amid an intraparty row over abortion policy. Now, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is left without critical leverage as the Democratic-majority Senate advances its own plans and Congress hurtles toward a federal shutdown Oct. 1.

House GOP leaders had hoped that inserting abortion policy into every major piece of their government spending plans would help win over conservative members and placate influential outside groups agitating for more aggressive action on the issue. But so far, the move has helped to seal the demise of what is usually among the easiest appropriations bills for Congress to pass, drawing fierce and rare pushback from more than a dozen moderate Republicans.

At the center of the battle: a GOP provision in the agriculture funding bill to ban mail delivery of abortion pills nationwide. Divisions over the move, along with disagreement over the total spending levels, forced senior Republicans to scuttle a planned House vote on the bill that funds the USDA and Food and Drug Administration at the end of July. Discussions to revive the bill over the August recess failed, according to three people who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Now, Republican leaders have no plans to bring the bill to the floor vote amid the time crunch, the three people familiar with the talks confirmed. That leaves the Democratic-controlled Senate — which is advancing its own, very different version of the Agriculture and FDA funding bill as part of a “minibus” spending package this week — in a far stronger negotiating position when it comes time to hammer out a compromise spending bill to fund the government.

“It’s dead, dead,” one of the people familiar with the talks said, describing the fate of the House USDA and FDA funding bill, and, for now, the ban on mail delivery of abortion pills House Republicans have been pushing.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, said agriculture was important “on both sides of the aisle” but that Agriculture Department and FDA funding will likely be hammered out in talks with the Senate. The focus now, the Montana Republican said, should be elsewhere.

“We gotta get the border done,” Zinke said.

While GOP leaders anticipated pushback on the spending proposals from their right flank — including pressure for deeper spending cuts and tougher border security measures — they’ve also faced rare public pushback from moderate Republicans, who have dug in against their abortion strategy. In particular, those moderates have objected to the provision in the Agriculture and FDA spending bill to ban mail delivery of abortion pills, which have become a major flashpoint since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Approved for use up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, the pills have become the most common method of abortion in the U.S. but battles over the drugs continuing to play out in courts, state legislatures and on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), who represents a district President Joe Biden won in 2020, said in an interview earlier this summer that he “cannot vote for the bill” as long as it includes the abortion pill rider. Fellow New York Republican Mike Lawler, who also hails from a Biden district, told POLITICO the abortion pill policy “should be dealt with at the state level.”

Those GOP moderates are eager to see controversial abortion provisions and other divisive provisions included the House’s other spending bills tossed out as House GOP leaders turn to crafting a larger funding package and reconciling it with the Senate.

In other areas of the spending fight, House Republicans’ Financial Services draft funding bill would block Washington, D.C., from using its own money to support abortion services and ban insurance coverage of either abortion or gender-affirming care for federal employees. Their Labor-HHS-Education spending bill would ban federal funding for medical research using fetal tissue and bar Planned Parenthood from participating in any federal programs. And their State-Foreign Operations spending bill would ban funding to any group overseas that provides abortions or information about the procedure.

The House’s Defense spending bill, which recently drew a veto threat from the White House over its anti-abortion provisions among other measures, is also in trouble. A floor vote on the GOP bill, which would block funding for service members to travel for an abortion if they’re stationed in a state where the procedure is banned, is now in jeopardy.

“A number of us would like to see the stickier social issues presented as individual amendments,” said Rep. John Duarte, a Republican who represents a blue district in California.

The fight comes as Republicans continue to struggle to unite around a strategy and message on abortion more than a year after the fall of Roe v. Wade. And Democrats plan to lean heavily on the issue in the 2024 campaign.

 

In other words, the House GOP can't even pass its own bills at this point, which means the Senate is in charge, the deals will be made with the Democrats, and McCarthy will have to eat bowl after bowl of turd flakes, resulting in his eventual ouster next month as he gets the Boehner Special. 

 

And note it's not the right-wing MAGA trolls dropping out of this bill, it's the House Republicans in Blue and purple states who know if they vote to end shipping of abortion meds by mail that they're done.

Who knows who will replace him, but I don't see him surviving as Speaker for much longer. Maybe Gaetz or Stefanik? Steve Scalise? 

We'll see.

The Greene Monster Gets Her Due

Once again, Republican Congressmonster Marjorie Taylor Greene is openly calling for secession from the US.

 

IN FEBRUARY, GEORGIA Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a “national divorce” between red and blue states. Now, she’s taking her call for a schism even further by encouraging states to outright “consider seceding from the union.”

On Monday, Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that “if the Biden admin refuses to stop the invasion of cartel led human and drug trafficking into our country, states should consider seceding from the union.”

“From Texas to New York City to every town in America, we are drowning from Biden’s traitorous America last border policies,” Greene added.

Months ago, Greene suggested that a “national divorce,” rather than, say, a democratic form of governance, was needed to remedy the disputes between Republican and Democratic states. “From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done,” Greene said at the time.

 

Once again, the problem isn't Greene. The problem is the party she represents allows her to stay in the House., and there's no reason to believe they will change that, nor the voters in her district. She is allowed to make statements like that as a sitting member of Congress because she is enabled to by the House GOP and the people of Georgia.

And Greene is more than happy to take credit for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's decision on Tuesday to bring an impeachment inquiry into President Biden to a vote on the House floor. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants it to be known that she was the first to push for impeaching President Joe Biden, chiding fellow Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz for trying to steal some of the credit.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday announced that he was directing his committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over allegations that the now-president profited off of the business activities of his son, Hunter Biden.

The decision comes as the California Republican has faced mounting pressure over the issue from many members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, who hold immense sway in the narrow Republican House majority. Greene, a Georgia Republican and key McCarthy ally, was previously ousted from the caucus.

Just minutes before McCarthy made his announcement on Capitol Hill, Gaetz remarked on the Biden impeachment inquiry debate, writing on X that he "pushed" for the Speaker to act on the issue. The Florida Republican is close with the caucus, but he is not a member.

"When @SpeakerMcCarthy makes his announcement in moments, remember that as I pushed him for weeks, @kilmeade said I was: 'Speaking into the wind' on impeachment. Turns out, the wind may be listening!," he said.

But Greene, who has pushed for Biden's impeachment since he first took office, countered Gaetz's argument on X by accusing the lawmaker of being late to the game in seeking going after the president and his son.

"Correction my friend. I introduced articles of impeachment against Joe Biden for his corrupt business dealings in Ukraine & China while he was Vice President on his very first day in office," she said. "You wouldn't cosponsor those and I had to drag you kicking and screaming to get you to cosponsor my articles on the border. Who's really been making the push?

—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) September 12, 2023

Earlier on Tuesday, Greene said that the impeachment inquiry "isn't a tall order," contending that the House Oversight Committee has "uncovered mountains of evidence of crimes and corruption committed by the Biden family."

The White House on Tuesday immediately pushed back against GOP efforts to start an impeachment inquiry.

"McCarthy is being told by Marjorie Taylor Greene to do impeachment, or else she'll shut down the government," Ian Sams, the White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, wrote on X.

"Opening impeachment despite zero evidence of wrongdoing by POTUS is simply red meat for the extreme rightwing so they can keep baselessly attacking him," he added.

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, on Sunday told MSNBC's Jen Psaki that the "time for impeachment is the time when there's evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor."

"That doesn't exist right now," he said.

Greene in a recent CNN interview slammed Buck over his stance, remarking that there was an "unbelievable" degree of frustration with the former prosecutor.

"This is the same guy that wrote a book called 'Drain the Swamp', who is now arguing against an impeachment inquiry," she told the network. "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?"

 

The White House has the right of this, and they're ready to play defense while pointing out the GOP is willing to wreck the economy over nonsense like this, reminding everyone exactly why Trump lost in 2020 and why the GOP lost the Senate...and needs to lose the House again.

Greene wants to take credit? Let her, as loudly and as often as possible.

Last Call For And He'll Gaetz Away With It, Con't

Following up on prosecutor recommendations, the Justice Department is officially refusing to bring charges against GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz after a nearly four-year investigation into Gaetz's alleged sexual abuse of minors and underage trafficking.

 

The Justice Department has informed lawyers for at least one witness that it will not bring charges against Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz after a years-long federal sex-trafficking investigation.

Senior officials reached out to lawyers for multiple witnesses on Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, to inform them of the decision not to prosecute Gaetz.

The final decision was made by Department of Justice leadership after investigators recommended against charges last year.

“We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and they have determined not to bring any charges against him,” Gaetz’s lawyers, Marc Mukasey and Isabelle Kirshner, said in a statement.

The congressman’s office said in a separate statement that the department informed them the investigation has ended and no charges will be brought.

The DOJ’s formal decision not to charge Gaetz, who has been serving in Congress since 2017, marks the end of a long-running investigation into allegations that the congressman violated federal law by paying for sex, including with women who were younger than 18 years old.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

 

Despite a witness wo turned state's evidence against him, Merrick Garland has nothing worth bringing to trial, and so that's that.

 

Until, you know, Gaetz does the same thing again. 

It's up to voters now.

Climate of Emergency, Con't

As millions of Florida residents try to put their lives aback together after Hurricane Ian last week, several things are becoming increasingly clear. The death toll will go up. The most marginalized in the path of the storm have the fewest resources to recover. More, and more powerful storms like Ian will hit Florida in the years to come. Insurance companies will help to rebuild and replace, but not infinitely. The mental and emotional health of storm victims will be just as important as physical.

And Republicans will do absolutely nothing about any of those problems.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is calling for the US to send aid to Floridians in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian — but he also voted "no" to a bill that carved out cash for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to do just that.

In a tweet on Sunday, Gaetz appealed for help after Hurricane Ian battered Florida. Ian was a Category 4 storm when it made landfall and pummeled the Florida coast, killing at least 76 people.

"Dear Congress: On behalf of my fellow Florida Man in grave need of assistance…. Just send us like half of what you sent Ukraine. Signed, Your Fellow Americans," Gaetz wrote on Twitter.

Gaetz's appeal for funding came two days after he — and 200 other Republicans — voted against a stopgap measure that sought to fund the government through December. Among other provisions, the bill also gave $18.8 billion to FEMA's disaster relief fund, $12 billion in aid for Ukraine, and $112 million to beef up security at federal courts.

Speaking on the House floor in support of the bill last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that passing the bill would free up disaster recovery funding that would "go toward supporting Florida as well as Puerto Rico, Alaska and other communities hit by disaster."

In the roll-call vote on Friday, 10 Republicans joined 220 Democrats in voting for the bill. It was signed into law by President Joe Biden on September 30.

In a video posted to his Twitter page on October 1, Gaetz said he voted against the bill because it had other spending priorities tagged to it as well.

"This was a piece of legislation regarding insulin prices. And they attached the entire funding of our government and Ukraine's to that bill so that these programs and these policy choices would not be subjected to committee review, and to hearings, and to markups and amendments," Gaetz said in the video.

 

Every single Florida Republican, including Gaetz and both Sens. Scott and Rubio, voted against every penny of the $18 billion in FEMA aid.  Ian is easily going to be the most expensive storm in Florida history, costing $60 billion or more by some estimates and the true cost will be far higher.

But Florida Republicans, given the opportunity to show that they support the federal government when it comes to giving the people the aid they need, said "go to hell, Florida" instead.

Oh, and GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn't care either. He made sure the state's insurance providers would get rich off a multi-billion dollar slush fund for the next hurricane to hit. Now that Ian has devastated the state, rebuilding will now be impossible for tens of thousands. The insurance companies gave $700K to DeSantis's campaign war chest in return.

Republicans know climate change exists. They're happily profiting from the misery.

Keep that in mind.

Last Call For The Gaetz Of Hell, Con't

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz is currently facing a number of criminal investigations for sex trafficking of minors, campaign finance issues, January 6th insurrection involvement, and brokering pardons for people like Roger Stone. But now we learn on top of all that, he wanted Trump to preemptively pardon him specifically on the sex trafficking stuff before he left office.

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told a former White House aide that he was seeking a preemptive pardon from President Donald Trump regarding an investigation in which he is a target, according to testimony given to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Johnny McEntee, according to people familiar with his testimony, told investigators that Gaetz told him during a brief meeting “that they are launching an investigation into him or that there’s an investigation into him,” without specifying who was investigating Gaetz.

McEntee added that Gaetz told him “he did not do anything wrong but they are trying to make his life hell, and you know, if the president could give him a pardon, that would be great.” Gaetz told McEntee that he had asked White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for a pardon.

Asked by investigators if Gaetz’s request for a pardon was in the context of the Justice Department investigation into whether Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, McEntee replied, “I think that was the context, yes,” according to people familiar with the testimony who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The testimony is the first indication that Gaetz was specifically seeking a pardon for his own exposure related to the Justice Department inquiry into whether he violated sex trafficking laws. His public posture in the final months of the Trump administration was much less specific, repeatedly calling for broad preemptive pardons to fend off possible Democratic investigations.

McEntee testified that Gaetz met him briefly one evening and discussed the issue of a pardon but McEntee could not recall whether their conversation happened before or after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, according to people familiar with the testimony.

The Justice Department investigation into whether Gaetz paid for sex, paid for women to travel across state lines to have sex, and had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, was opened in the final months of the Trump administration with approval from Attorney General William P. Barr. The probe stemmed from a federal investigation of Gaetz’s friend who is now a convicted sex trafficker. Gaetz has denied paying for sex or having sex with a minor as an adult.

 

With both McEntee and Mark Meadows both fully cooperating with the Justice Department, Gaetz's indictment is probably a lot closer than people think.

 

Then again, this has dragged on for over 3 years now.  That makes me believe the opposite. Gaetz has already won reelection with these allegations once, and there's no reason whatsoever to believe that he won't win by 20-30 points again in November.

Gaetz ia guilty as sin, but it doesn't matter if he's no indicted. He certainly won't be tossed out by the voters in his FL-1 district.

The Gaetz Of Hell

 GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, already facing an ongoing federal investigation for assaulting and trafficking underage girls, on top of voting last week against federal sex trafficking legislation in the House that passed easily, of already facing an ongoing investigation into his involvement in the January 6th insurrection, now faces new allegations of being Trump's pardon pimp for Roger Stone.

As Roger Stone prepared to stand trial in 2019, complaining he was under pressure from federal prosecutors to incriminate Donald Trump, a close ally of the president repeatedly assured Stone that “the boss” would likely grant him clemency if he were convicted, a recording shows.

At an event at a Trump property that October, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) predicted that Stone would be found guilty at his trial in Washington the following month but would not “do a day” in prison. Gaetz was apparently unaware they were being recorded by documentary filmmakers following Stone, who special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had charged with obstruction of a congressional investigation.

“The boss still has a very favorable view of you,” said Gaetz, stressing that the president had “said it directly.” He also said, “I don’t think the big guy can let you go down for this.”

Gaetz at one point told Stone he was working on getting him a pardon but was hesitant to say more backstage at the event, in which speakers were being filmed for online broadcast. “Since there are many, many recording devices around right now, I do not feel in a position to speak freely about the work I’ve already done on that subject,” Gaetz said.

The lawmaker also told Stone during their conversation that Stone was mentioned “a lot” in redacted portions of Mueller’s report, appearing to refer to portions that the Justice Department had shown to select members of Congress confidentially in a secure room. “They’re going to do you, because you’re not gonna have a defense,” Gaetz told Stone.

The 25-minute recording was captured by a microphone that Stone was wearing on his lapel for a Danish film crew, which was making a feature-length documentary on the veteran Republican operative. The filmmakers allowed Washington Post reporters to review their footage in advance of the release of their film, “A Storm Foretold,” which is expected later this year.

The recording gives a rare unguarded view of Trump confidants candidly discussing legal peril away from public eyes. Mueller’s report said it was possible that Trump had both lied to investigators about his contacts with Stone and was aware Stone might provide damaging testimony against him if he chose to cooperate with prosecutors.

Gaetz is a member of the House Judiciary Committee. At the time of the conversation, the committee was investigating whether Trump might have obstructed justice by floating possible pardons to Stone and other allies who were swept up in Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

In a statement to The Post, Gaetz’s office said he was not speaking on Trump’s behalf during the pardon discussion with Stone. His remarks about secret portions of the Mueller report were not specific enough to violate the terms under which he had been permitted to view them, the statement said.

 

Trump of course pardoned Roger Stone and several other convicted criminals working for him in December of 2020.

It's a criminal organization masquerading as a federal government, as they said. Congrats, Matt. I've blogged about you so much that you finally get your own Stupiditag™.