House of Representatives: Democrats in da house!

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

Shiff blew the roof off the House of Rep's yesterday. It came from a deep place; he was incredibly pissed off.  

So good to see a Dem ON FIRE!  The incidents enumerated by Shiff were only the tip of the iceberg of the things Trump has publicly done to show blatant favoritism to Putin.  

Besides all the sh*t that went down down during the campaign, for me this was Trump's semaphore to US citizens of  his blatant acquiescence to Putin and Russian interests.  Trump met with Lavrov (Russian foreign minister) and Kislyak (Russian ambassador to US)  in the Oval Office on May 17, 2017, right after Trump fired Comey.  A transcript from that meeting: "I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job.  I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." 

From this NPR article, Report: Trump Told Russians He Fired 'Nut Job' Comey Because Of Investigation

Quote

At the same meeting, The Washington Post reported...Trump had given the Russians "highly classified information" that "jeopardized a critical source of intelligence" on ISIS that came from a key ally, which, according to later reports, was Israel. No American reporters were allowed in to document the meeting, only a Russian Foreign Ministry photographer.

Recall that this meeting took place in May 2017.  Trump had been in office 5 months.  He had plenty of time to realize that you don't discuss highly classified details with any foreign entity, especially not an enemy of the US. 

Trump has NEVER tried to conceal his collusion/conspiracy/affinity for Putin and the blatant promotion of Russian interests and goals.  

Edited March 29, 2019 by Howl

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[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Asshole) needs to stuff a sock in his mouth: "Rep. Gaetz says transgender rights bill would let Trump declare himself the ‘first female president’"

Spoiler

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Tuesday voiced concern about a transgender rights bill under consideration by a House committee, arguing that the measure could allow President Trump to declare himself the “first female president.”

Gaetz, one of Trump’s most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill, is known for making incendiary statements. He was speaking at a hearing on H.R. 5, the “Equality Act,” which would prohibit discrimination against gay and transgender individuals in housing, use of public spaces, employment and other areas.

Gaetz said at the hearing that while he supports the rights of transgender people and “will not denigrate or deny their existence or their struggles,” he believes the bill as written “would only nominally protect certain individuals while causing tremendous harm to others.”

“What happens when sex is defined as gender identity, and gender identity is terribly vague?” Gaetz asked. “Will all sex-based distinctions be erased? . . . Would grants for female-led businesses or programs for women in STEM fields suddenly be open to all persons, whether they believe or not that they identify as a woman?”

He added that he does not believe that the majority of all transgender people are “exploiting” their gender identity but that there are some “bad actors” who could take advantage of the law for their own benefit.

“Consider this possibility: If President Trump were to say, ‘I am now the first female president,’ who would celebrate that?” Gaetz asked. “Would those who support the legislation think that’s a good thing or would they be dismayed? Bad actors have already weaponized some ostensible equality laws for their own benefit.”

A spokeswoman for the Florida Republican did not immediately respond to a request for clarification of his comments.

 

[fraurosena]

None of our threads is quite the right one to put this message, but as it is about policies and change, I decided to put it here. 

 

[formergothardite]

I'm not exactly sure where to put this but I'm putting it here since it does involve a republican house representative. 

Quote

Republican Rep. Mark Walker has been caught up in a federal corruption probe that has rocked the North Carolina Republican Party and led to the indictment of former Rep. Robin Hayes.

A Walker-controlled political committee received $150,000 from business owner Greg Lindberg at the same time Lindberg allegedly asked him to pressure North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey to replace his deputy, according to a criminal indictment unsealed on Tuesday.

Walker, a member of GOP leadership, is not named in the indictment. However, POLITICO has identified him as "Public Official A" using the indictment and Federal Election Commission records.

The Justice Department announced indictments of four people Tuesday on charges of public corruption and bribery, including Lindberg and Hayes, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party until earlier this week.Lindberg and two of his associates allegedly tried to bribe Causey, who was working with federal authorities and not charged in the probe, to oust North Carolina Department of Insurance’s senior deputy commissioner. Lindberg allegedly sought more favorable treatment of his company in the state.

Texts and emails released by the DOJ said Walker was part of Lindberg's scheme to pressure Causey over the personnel move. Causey alerted law enforcement officials to what was happening in January 2018, according to the indictment.

The indictment mentions several contacts Walker reportedly had with Causey in support of Lindberg's secret campaign.

“Just between the 3 of us … [Public Official A] has already made two calls on our behalf and is trying to help us move the ball forward,” one of Lindberg’s associates wrote in a Feb. 12, 2018, email to Lindberg, according to the indictment. “I was also told that the $150,000 will be going to [Public Official A].”

FEC records show Lindberg donated to the Mark Walker Victory Committee on Feb. 17, 2018. Lindberg was the first donor to contribute to the committee, which was created only four days before his donation was recorded. The committee is a joint political fundraising committee between Walker’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Earlier, Lindberg donated more than $78,000 to a different Walker-affiliated joint fundraising committee, according to FEC records. Lindberg, founder and chairman of Eli Global and the owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group, is a major donor to both political parties, though the overwhelming amount of his contributions were to Republicans.

Walker denied any wrongdoing in a brief interview with POLITICO, saying he has “seen the insurance commissioner at different Republican events.”

“We’re not even part of this investigation,” Walker said of the federal criminal probe. “I’m not going to get into [that with] you with any kind of details. Two of those are constituents of mine. They reach out to me; one of them is the county chairman.”

Jack Minor, a spokesman for Walker, emphasized that Walker has not been charged or indicted and said that Walker has been fully cooperating with the probe, though he declined to say in what way. Walker has not been interviewed by investigators or turned over documents, Minor said.

"Greg Lindberg has contributed to both the Republican and Democratic Party. The February contribution went to the Republican National Committee and did not benefit Walker’s campaign," Minor said in a statement. "Walker is not and never has been a target of this investigation, and has committed no wrongdoing. He has assisted the DOJ.”

But even if Walker is not indicted, he could still face an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, noted several lawmakers and aides.

An attorney for Lindberg, Anne Tompkins, said Lindberg is innocent of the charges in the indictment and looks forward "to demonstrating this when we get our day in court.”

According to the indictment, an associate sent a text message to Lindberg after a February phone call with Walker, which read “I have discussed our NCDOI matter with [Public Official A.] ... Excellent opportunity available for support here.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/02/walker-federal-corruption-probe-north-carolina-1249335

[GreyhoundFan]

 

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[GreyhoundFan]

Cue the twitter meltdown: "House Democrats seek six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns"

Spoiler

The House Ways and Means Committee asked the IRS Wednesday for six years of President Trump’s personal and business tax returns, a request the president signaled he will fight.

“Congress, as a coequal branch of government, has a duty to conduct oversight of departments and officials,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “The Ways and Means Committee in particular has a responsibility to conduct oversight of our voluntary federal tax system and determine how Americans — including those elected to our highest office — are complying with those laws.”

Neal made the request in a two-page letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in which he sought broad details about Trump’s personal tax returns from 2013-2018 — including whether the returns are or have been under audit. That was the explanation Trump used during the campaign for refusing to release his tax returns, as has been the practice of past presidential candidates.

Neal also sought the returns from eight business entities associated with Trump, and details on those. The businesses listed include Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and DJT Holdings LLC.

Neal asked the IRS to send him the information requested by April 10. The one-week deadline fast-tracks a showdown that is certain to end up in the court.

Speaking at the White House, Trump said, “We are under audit, despite what people said, and working that out — I’m always under audit, it seems, but I’ve been under audit for many years because the numbers are big, and I guess when you have a name, you’re audited. But until such time as I’m not under audit, I would not be inclined to do it.”

Privately, Trump has told White House and Treasury advisers that he does not plan to hand over his tax returns to Congress — and that he would fight it to the Supreme Court, hoping to stall it after the 2020 election, according to two administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the conversations. Treasury officials are not going to comply with the request until they are compelled to do so.

Congressional Democrats have launched a number of investigations into Trump’s financial dealings and allegations of abuse of power and public corruption. They believe that the information contained in his tax returns could be critical to answering many of their questions, including whether he lied to insurers and banks to inflate his wealth.

Neal has been under pressure from some fellow Democrats all year to move quickly on the tax returns request, with some voicing concerns that it was taking him too long to move forward with a request that could spark a lengthy court battle.

“I take the authority to make this request very seriously, and I approach it with the utmost care and respect. This request is about policy, not politics; my preparations were made on my own track and timeline, entirely independent of other activities in Congress and the administration,” Neal said in his statement. “My actions reflect an abiding reverence for our democracy and our institutions, and are in no way based on emotion of the moment or partisanship.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said he views the request as political and that he does not think he’ll be requesting Trump’s returns — although in the past, he’s said that if House Democrats get Trump’s tax returns he wants the Finance Committee to have them, too.

The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee are among a select few congressional committees that have the legal right to ask the IRS for a copy of any person’s tax returns.

“I don’t think that things that Nixon and LBJ did to use the IRS for political purposes are legitimate, and I see this as political,” Grassley said. “I’m much in favor of any committee member House or Senate doing any oversight they want to of whether the laws are faithfully executed because that’s our job under constitutional oversight. But doing it for political purposes is not legitimate.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This voicemail message is horrifying:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Ted Lieu:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More shade:

 

[smittykins]

At first, I misread the first line as “@realDonaldTrump will make a side trip...to eat son Eric...”

[GreyhoundFan]

The article referenced by Ted Lieu: "What the heck does Steve King do all day?"

Spoiler

What the heck does Steve King do all day?

Shunned by his party’s leadership, bounced from congressional hearings, removed from key parts of the legislative process, and serving in the House minority — the Republican from Iowa has less to do than any congressman in recent history. But he still must do something, right? Does anyone know?

“I’m not sure what he’s been up to,” said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the minority whip and man in charge of knowing what other Republicans are up to.

“I don’t see him as much as I did before. That’s one of the things I miss,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), a friend of King’s who is best known for the rambling speeches (“Terror babies!” “Bestiality!” “Barack Hussein Obama!”) he gives from the otherwise-empty House floor.

In January, House Republicans decided that King — a longtime promoter of white supremacy — had finally gone too far. “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” he asked in a cringe-filled interview with the New York Times. Those words brought punishment and King was stripped of his committee assignments; making him a congressman minus responsibility.

“From my point of view, he used to be contributing negatively — but at least he was contributing,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of King’s former committee assignments.

Today, King has less goodwill and more free time than ever. One thing he’s doing today is avoiding discussing what he’s doing.

“I’m done talking,” King said, waiting for an elevator outside his Capitol Hill office, after this reporter stuck a recorder in his face. King tapped his foot impatiently and scratched at his comb-over. He looked up with his glacial blue eyes to watch the floor numbers change, the air gently whistling through his nose hairs.

A silent Steve King was once a rare thing. He’s known to speak his mind, and to do so with just about anyone who will listen. The gabbing used to be a big part of his schedule, but now he’s operating under what he called “new rules.”

“Let’s just end this so you don’t have to go through any more frustration,” he said. “And I can pay attention to what I’m doing.”

Which, again, is what, exactly?

To spend the better part of a week figuring out what Steve King does all day is to be confronted with a bigger, existential question: What do any of these people do all day?

For the most part, the successful members of Congress wake up early for some fundraising over breakfast, commute to work (while fundraising), meet with some lobbyists and constituents in their office, yuk it up with colleagues during votes on bills that rarely become laws, then it’s off to happy hour for some quick fundraising before finally settling down with some of their closest donors for dinner, dessert and fundraising. (Or, as King was spotted doing on a cold evening this past winter, visiting a Capitol Hill liquor store in a suit and sandals and talking about how the Irish make the best booze.)

Oh, yes, and for almost all members of Congress, some time needs to be set aside for crafting legislation and preparing for (and attending) committee hearings. Almost all members, that is, other than King and two compatriots, Rep. Chris Collins of New York and Rep. Duncan D. Hunter of California, both of whom are under federal indictment and were booted from their committees.

“It sucks,” said Collins, who noted that he plans to fill his time with caucus meetings — caucuses that include: the Toy Caucus, the Propane Caucus, the Battery Storage Caucus, and, for some reason, the Morocco Caucus.

Last week the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties held a hearing on presidential pardon power. It was a heady conversation about a topical issue. (“The possibility of the pardon power being used for corrupt purposes is no longer a mere academic exercise,” one witness testified.) King used to chair this subcommittee.

But now that he’s barred from participating, he had other meetings to attend.

Meetings like this one:

“His grandmother is my aunt,” said Ray Harm after exiting King’s office. Harm was in from California to see the cherry blossoms and had decided that he would call the office of his distant relative and see whether the congressman might have some time to catch up. He did.

“We were trying to remember all of my aunts and uncles and my brother and where they fit in,” Harm said. They spoke for more than half an hour.

King met with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, even though he no longer sits on the Agriculture Committee. He met with a woman representing Easterseals, a nonprofit organization that provides services to disabled Americans, and later representatives from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, where they talked about efforts to save the bald eagle. He was “warm and welcoming” to the Save the Children Action Network, telling them he would look over and be supportive of early-childhood education but couldn’t offer specifically what he could do for them.

Those who sat with him described him as chatty and in high spirits — though one attendee of a meeting said this before King launched into a “tirade” about how silly it is that his critics are “perpetually offended” by everything he says.

Those critics, however, have been bipartisan. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, said King should “find another line of work”; Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-most-powerful Republican in the House, called King’s comments “absolutely abhorrent”; and just last week Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, had this to say: “I have no idea what Steve King does all day. I just know that every now and then he makes a very racist statement.”

Over the years, King has had plenty of time for such statements. There was the time he compared immigrants to "bird dogs," or warned about the ones with "calves the size of cantaloupes" who bring marijuana "across the desert." Even after being stripped of his committees, King hasn't fully put the lid on it: tweeting out a meme about how Southern states, with all their stockpiled bullets, would win if there were to be a second Civil War or disparaging Hurricane Katrina victims as overly government-dependent at a recent town hall.

In the meantime, King has drawn competitive Republican primary opponents back home. His fundraising — never the most pressing concern in his ruby-red district — has been down every cycle since 2012. He faced his closest reelection campaign of his career last year, and because of that has made himself much more visible at home: hosting more town halls than ever, sitting in on more constituent meetings than he used to. But in Washington, many Republicans don’t seem all that concerned about his prospects.

“Congressman Steve King’s recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate,” Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, then the eader of the National Republican Congressional Committee, wrote shortly after King’s interview with the Times. “We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.”

So, Steve King has been shunned. But, really, it’s a light shunning.

He’s still allowed to attend the weekly Republican conference meeting, which he does, though quietly.

“There are a few people who are always at the microphones, and he isn’t one of them,” said Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla). “Not that that’s a bad thing.”

He hasn’t been disinvited from the semiregular Iowa delegation breakfast that Sen. Joni Ernst organizes (though he did skip the last one), and he’s the host of his own breakfast series, the Conservative Opportunity Society breakfast, featuring guest speakers such as former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka. And at a recent vote series, while King stood in the back of the chamber, texting and muttering quietly to himself, he was approached by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), and the two laughed and laughed about who knows what.

“Oh, Steve’s doing good,” Yoho said, coming off the House floor. “He’s resilient. I think he’ll get put back on committees.”

Yoho, a large-animal veterinarian by training, once said he would not be intimidated by Congress because: “Intimidating is going up to a growling Rottweiler and having to squeeze his anal glands. . . . I think I can handle Congress.”

But now, he’s frustrated by the place, and the King situation hasn’t helped. It’s “hypocrisy” at its finest, he said, that King would be punished for his comments by Republicans when, say, Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, has been able to maintain her committee assignments despite comments perceived as anti-Semitic.

“It’s like raising kids,” he said. “You can’t treat them separately for doing something bad.”

It was the end of the day, back in the waiting room of King's congressional office. A shelf near the ceiling overflowed with eagle busts, hard hats and elephant statues.

“It’s bearable, we’re getting through it,” said Garrett Elmy, King’s staff assistant. In the other room, King meets with his communications director, John Kennedy, explaining how he had eschewed the media for another day.

“I told him, John Kennedy is my gatekeeper,” King said, his voice sounding particularly nasal from behind a closed door. “That’s all I said.”

He seemed content on avoiding the media and seeing whether he could wait out the outrage. In a post-shame society, it has seemed to work for plenty of other politicians (see: Northam, Ralph and Trump, President). King’s days may be numbered in Congress, but who knows how big that number is?

Moments later King emerged into the hallway to scurry to the last votes of the evening. He stepped into an elevator designated “members only” and disappeared into the bowels of Congress. Where, apparently, he still belongs.

 

[Howl]

Devin "Milk Dud" Nunes is up to some type of skullduggery.  

Nunes sending eight criminal referrals to Attorney General William Barr

He's being coy about who is referenced in the criminal referrals. 

[Audrey2]

11 hours ago, Howl said:

Devin "Milk Dud" Nunes is up to some type of skullduggery.  

Nunes sending eight criminal referrals to Attorney General William Barr

He's being coy about who is referenced in the criminal referrals.

Hmmm... Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Maxine Waters?

[AmazonGrace]

My guess is  he's coming after Cohen, McCabe, Brennan, Comey, Rice, Strzok, Page  and people like that who took part in the Russia investigation  or testified truthfully about Trump.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

So Mnuchin is attempting to justify not releasing Trump's tax returns, even though Congress has the legal right to review them.

Hah, technically he might not be lying when he says "he has not had any conversations with anyone in the White House on the issue"... but I'm willing to bet he did have those conversations in Mar-a-lago.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]