Last Call For The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

New Speaker, same old incompetence as America rushes towards a GOP caused shutdown, completely unable to pass their massive spending cuts because gosh, they're unpopular.

House Republicans closed out the week by canceling votes on two party-line funding bills in the span of 48 hours, a setback for new Speaker Mike Johnson and a sign of persisting dysfunction in the chamber ahead of a key funding deadline.

They pulled a transportation-housing bill late Tuesday as some coastal Republicans opposed cuts to Amtrak. And they yanked a financial services and general government measure on Thursday morning that included divisive anti-abortion language.

It's a step backward for Johnson, R-La., who had hoped to show progress on appropriations bills championed by his party's conservative wing in order to secure their votes to pass a short-term bill that would keep the government open beyond the Nov. 17 deadline.

And it shows how ungovernable the House continues to be after right-wing Republicans ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy over complaints about his handling of government funding.

"I don't think the Lord Jesus himself could manage this group," said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas. He added that he would pray for the new speaker as the House adjourned for a long weekend.

"We’re still dealing with the same divisions we always have had," said another House Republican. "We’re ungovernable."

On Capitol Hill, questions abound about how the new speaker will handle his first big test in a divided government, where he must balance the demands of ultraconservatives with a Democratic-led Senate and president.

"I think there's a honeymoon period here. I'm not sure how long it lasts, maybe 30 days," said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. "But with what's going on on the floor today, I think that indicates the honeymoon might be shorter than we thought."

This week, Johnson held multiple meetings with groups of rank-and-file Republicans about a path forward on a short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR. But lawmakers didn’t get a good read on Johnson's yet-to-be-unveiled strategy: Some thought he might go with a “clean” CR without controversial policy add-ons that would fund the government into January, while others believed the speaker would back a two-step CR proposed by members of the far-right Freedom Caucus.

"He wants a simple plan that will pass the Senate," said moderate Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who met with Johnson on Wednesday along with roughly 20 other lawmakers. "We should do the hard fights on appropriations and the border, and all that stuff. We shouldn't have the hard fight on the CR — let's keep the government open and make it bipartisan."

Republicans said Johnson will need to make a call on a CR strategy by Friday to abide by the 72-hour rule, which gives lawmakers sufficient time to read the legislation before voting on it early next week. Members departed Washington on Thursday afternoon and will return on Monday.

"We've got to get the Senate something, and you'll see us get the Senate something," said conservative Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who met with Johnson and is pushing for the two-step process that's been termed a "laddered CR."

But of course there's no reason to believe that the House GOP can pass anything without Democratic votes, and that puts us right back where we were when McCarthy got tossed. 

Mike Johnson might not survive the month as Speaker.

Last Call For Hunting The Hunter, Con't

Now that their circus ringmaster fight is over (for now), House Republicans want to continue to ignore the actual business of the nation and drag Hunter Biden into the spotlight in televised hearings to...I guess make him feel bad and to call him names?

House Republicans are considering issuing a subpoena of Hunter Biden in their impeachment investigation of his father, President Joe Biden, sources tell The Messenger.

Subpoenaing the president's son, who is facing federal tax and firearm charges in Delaware, would mark the crescendo of an unwinding impeachment inquiry.

Three sources familiar with the conversations told The Messenger that the House GOP is seriously contemplating a subpoena for testimony from the president’s son, who has taken center stage in the impeachment investigation. While the sources said nothing was imminent, they said a subpoena of Hunter Biden is under “strong” consideration by Republican leadership.

The idea of hauling Hunter Biden before House GOP investigators comes after lawmakers approached him and James Biden, the president’s brother, for their business and personal bank records in the past few weeks since a new speaker was elected, unlocking the House from paralysis.

Republicans on the three committees leading the impeachment probe have made Hunter Biden and his overseas business deals a focal point of the investigation. One of the party’s main arguments has been that Joe Biden benefitted from his family’s business activities, including receiving money from countries like Ukraine and China. But the investigation has been unable to unearth any evidence directly linking Joe Biden to his family’s business deals.

Newly-installed House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been a staunch supporter of the impeachment inquiry. He said this week that he was “looking at” the idea of issuing a subpoena of Hunter Biden. And his rhetoric suggests the impeachment investigation is entering a more serious phase, including the possibility of filing articles of impeachment against the president.

“Very soon we are coming to a point of decision on it,” Johnson said at his first leadership press conference as speaker on Thursday. “We’re gonna follow the evidence where it leads and we’ll see. I’m not gonna predetermine it this morning.”

 

I would guess that all three House GOP committees will subpoena him separately in order to get maximum coverage of showing the American public that they can pick on a junkie. Meanwhile, the US government will shut down in two weeks, and House Republicans have yet to even offer any budget bills, so at this point who knows.

 

I sure hope the American people get sick of the Clown Show.

Last Call Fof The GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

With Mike Johnson as Ringmaster, the House GOP Clown Show is back, extorting American taxpayers coming and going in the name of owning the libs and protecting billionaire tax cheats.

The White House quickly dismissed a proposal Monday from House Republicans to pay for aid for Israel amid its war with Hamas by cutting funds for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

“Politicizing our national security interests is a nonstarter. Demanding offsets for meeting core national security needs of the United States — like supporting Israel and defending Ukraine from atrocities and Russian imperialism — would be a break with the normal, bipartisan process and could have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

The White House last week outlined a roughly $106 billion national security supplemental funding request that included money for Israel and Ukraine, which is fighting off invading Russian forces, as well as investments in the Indo-Pacific, humanitarian aid and border security measures.

Jean-Pierre argued there is “strong bipartisan agreement” in providing funding for each of the areas included in the White House proposal.

“Threatening to undermine American national security unless House Republicans can help the wealthy and big corporations cheat on their taxes — which would increase the deficit — is the definition of backwards,” Jean-Pierre said.

“Playing political games that threaten the source of funding for Israel’s self-defense — now and into the future — would set an unacceptable precedent that calls our commitment to one of our closest allies into question,” she added. “We cannot afford to jeopardize that commitment as Israel defends itself from the evil unleashed by Hamas.”

 

As Jon Chait points out, the House GOP bill would eliminate the $30 billion in money in last year's infrastructure bill for the IRS, and send a fraction-- $4 million -- to Israel as aid.

House Republicans have framed this demand for weakening the IRS as a deficit-cutting measure. Johnson “has said the new expenditure must be covered by other spending reductions to avoid adding to the debt,” reports the Washington Post. Representative Chip Roy, a right-wing Republican, claims, “I support Israel, but I am not going to continue to go down this road where we bankrupt our country and undermine our very ability to defend ourselves, much less our allies, by continuing to write blank checks.”

But cutting IRS funding does not avoid bankrupting our country. In fact, it hastens it. IRS funding is used to increase collection of tax payments. In theory, the IRS could be funded so lavishly that additional funding does not yield any net tax revenue, but reality is nowhere close to this level.

Research suggests that every additional dollar in IRS funding yields many times more dollars in revenue, through both direct enforcement and by deterring fraud. One recent paper estimates that a dollar of funding yields $12 in revenue.

The Congressional Budget Office, which issues official budget estimates, is required by law to use far more conservative estimates of the budgetary impact of IRS funding. Even so, its conservative methods would predict the GOP plan to reduce IRS funding will increase the deficit by about $30 billion.

So Republicans are saying this is a plan to “pay for” Israel aid. But that description is close to the opposite of the truth. It’s not a pay-for, it’s an add-on. Democrats and anti-Russia Senate Republicans want to add Israel spending to spending for defending Ukraine. Johnson and the House Republicans want to take out the Ukraine spending and throw in a big handout to rich tax cheats.

 

Nobody likes the IRS, so the Clown Show figures this is an easy win on paper.In practice, this won't get past the Senate and everyone knows it, but the point is to run out the clock in 2.5 weeks and crash the economy as we near the shutdown point on Nov. 17.

It's taking hostages. Meet the new Ringmaster, same as the old Ringmaster.

Last Call For Meet The New Ringmaster Of The House GOP Circus

Getting 220 votes in today's House vote, Republicans have elected MAGA chud and former hate radio jock Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as Speaker of the House.

 

House Republicans have elected Rep. Mike Johnson as the new speaker – a major moment that comes three weeks after Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.

There were 220 votes for Johnson and 209 votes for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries. There was unanimous GOP support behind Johnson. One Republican – Van Orden – was absent from the vote.

Johnson has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump and was a key congressional figure in the failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Johnson was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role.

An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

 

As I mentioned, he's one of the MAGA bunch who helped run Trump's Big Lie to try to steal the election in the House.

The Louisiana Republican was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role. An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.

Johnson also sent an email from a personal email account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for an amicus brief in the longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from multiple states.


After the election was called in favor of Joe Biden on November 7, 2020, Johnson posted on X, then known as Twitter, “I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’”

Although Trump said he won’t endorse anyone in the speaker’s race Wednesday, he eant support to Johnson in a post on Truth Social.

“In 2024, we will have an even bigger, & more important, WIN! My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!” Trump posted.

Johnson serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. He is also a former chair of the Republican Study Committee.

 

So the GOP finally found an acceptable nutjob to run the place, an avowed MAGA chunderhead who hates all the approved check boxes: Black folk, LGBTQ+ folk, women, immigrants, climate change, and most important of all, liberals.

The prediction of "worse than McCarthy" was as easy as falling off a Louisiana bayou log. Democrats have not only the architect of the House Big Lie pla to run against, they have an avowed homophobic bigot who wants a national ban on LGBTQ+ even existing, as well as a national ban on abortion with no exceptions. Oh, and he led the effort by Trump in the House to overturn the 2020 election. They couldn't find a better example of the GOP in 2023 as a poster monster.

And remember, it was a unanimous vote for the GOP. Every single one of them wanted Johnson as Speaker. They are 100% the party of Donald Trump, period.

Time to go to work, Dems.