United States Senate

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Stupid is as stupid does.

 

[VixenToast]

22 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Stupid is as stupid does.

 

I saw a meme somewhere saying, “Rand’s neighbor strikes again!” which gave me a giant giggle. 

[nvmbr02]

I am not even sure where the best place for this post is.

But Hell has frozen over because I actually like a tweet from Matt Gaetz without realizing it was him since it was so damn reasonable. (and I realize Matt Gaetz is a member of the House, but since it is about a Senator...)

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

As usual, Auntie is correct:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Rick's "Mean Girls" reference:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sigh. There should be an education and/or IQ test to run for senate:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Because they have all become BTs: "As Trump presides over an epic disaster, Senate Republicans see little to criticize"

Quote

Deaths linked to coronavirus in the United States have soared past 70,000, and there are over 1.2 million confirmed cases. In more than half of states that are lifting restrictions, “case counts are trending upward, positive test results are rising, or both.” More than 33 million people have filed jobless claims.

Meanwhile, President Trump is now preposterously insisting that “we have to open up” and that “testing is “overrated,” even though experts say we desperately need far more testing to “open up” safely. Trump has no intention of mounting a serious federal effort to make that happen, though this could put untold lives at risk.

But for Senate Republicans, Trump is doing a terrific job.

Politico reports that numerous Senate Republicans have decided that they see more political upside in vouching for the president’s handling of the pandemic than criticizing it. Behold these remarkable quotes:

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whose race could easily decide the Senate, said Americans won’t necessarily be voting with today’s drumbeat of 2,000 deaths a day and endless quarantines in mind. He predicted by August everything will look different.

“We’ll be doing millions and millions of tests, we’ll do the antibody tests, we’ll have good reports, I think, on the beginnings of economic progress,” Tillis said. “And I think all those things will benefit the president and they’ll benefit me.”

Ask a Republican about Trump’s response to the outbreak, instead of edging away from the president, you’ll likely hear cheers that he shut down travel to China early and praise for his focus on the disease.

“Generally, I feel [Trump’s] done a very good job,” said GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, who faces a tough reelection race in Iowa. “He was right on it from day one prohibiting travel from certain countries and so forth. I think it was the right thing to do.”

“He exhibited tremendous leadership in this whole process, looking to people who are the experts and acting accordingly,” added Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), whose state is constantly eyed by Democrats as fertile ground.

Other very vulnerable Senate Republicans have sounded similar tones. Sen. Martha McSally (Ariz.) has enthused that Trump has “been cheerleading for Americans and Arizonans,” as if this is something Trump deserves great credit for.

Meanwhile, Sen. Steve Daines (Mont.) claimed: “The president prepared for the worst, and thankfully we’re starting to see declines in infection rates and now it’s time to start safely opening up the economy.” No, Trump did not prepare for the worst. He abdicated on those preparations for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Sen. Cory Gardner (Colo.) has been only a bit more circumspect, claiming, “It’s important to not look and try to provide some kind of a grade,” and that “I think what’s important is trying to do better and better every day.” (Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, by contrast, has criticized Trump’s “uneven” handling of the crisis.)

The back story here is that an internal GOP memo advising GOP candidates to avoid defending Trump’s handling of the pandemic — and pivot to blaming China instead — recently leaked, causing an intraparty explosion.

The Mad King cannot tolerate such criticism. So a top Trump aide informed a senior adviser with the National Republican Senatorial Committee that any GOP Senate candidate who follows such heretical advice — and declines to defend Trump’s handling of the pandemic — cannot count on the Trump campaign’s backing, and risks losing GOP voter support.

Indeed, the Senate GOP campaign arm frantically rushed out a clarification: “There is no daylight between the NRSC and President Trump.”

No daylight at all?

Yes, typical party pressures generally make it hard for officials to criticize a president of the same party. But this is striking. Is there really no room at all in this party that might allow Republicans to gently suggest that there are ways Trump could be handling this significantly better than he is?

Okay, maybe some Senate Republicans might criticize this or that aspect of the response, or call for this or that to be done differently. But is it really the GOP position that the federal government — or at least the executive branch — couldn’t be doing a significantly better job handling the worst public health emergency in modern times than it is currently doing?

If the answer to that question is no, as it appears to be, the reason for this was hinted at in this week’s CNBC poll. It found that only 39 percent of Republicans in battleground states now have at least “somewhat” serious concerns about coronavirus, a remarkable drop from 55 percent last month. Nearly 70 percent of Republicans say things are starting to get better.

As Trump has lurched from his temporary “wartime president” pantomime of marshaling a serious response into treating it as if the problem has been so secured in hand that it’s time to move on, Republican voters appear to be agreeing that things are improving.

What’s remarkable about all this is that vulnerable Senate Republicans are ensnared in a trap that Trump has created. They plainly believe their best hope is that coronavirus will get under control, or at least that Trump and Republicans will successfully prod people to resume their economic lives, leading to an illusion of resumed normalcy that will improve the political climate.

Yet, by refusing to stand up the robust federal response that’s needed right now, Trump is making those things less likely to happen. And because those Republicans seem to have calculated that this must not be seriously criticized, they are tied tightly to that gamble as well.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

What an apt description of Rand Paul:

 

[JMarie]

On 5/13/2020 at 8:16 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

What an apt description of Rand Paul:

 

He looks like the kind of professor students dread, but they suck it up because he's the only one teaching a required course

[WiseGirl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

LOL, I love anyone publicly calling out Rafael:

 

[WiseGirl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Too bad Grassley won't grow a pair: "Trump shreds another Republican’s life’s work"

Spoiler

It has become a hallmark of the Trump era: the shameful end to a distinguished career.

Now it’s Sen. Chuck Grassley’s turn. For 40 years in the Senate, the Iowa Republican has been a champion of accountability, defending the oversight that exposes government corruption. But now the 86-year-old is watching, weakly, as President Trump shreds Grassley’s life’s work.

In just two months, Trump has:

• Fired the inspector general at the State Department who was looking into possible improprieties by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
• Replaced the acting inspector general at the Transportation Department who was investigating allegations of favoritism by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao benefiting her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
• Dismissed the inspector general of the intelligence community who forwarded to Congress the whistleblower complaint that kicked off impeachment, while firing or punishing others who participated in the inquiry.
• Ousted the inspector general of pandemic relief spending and replaced him with a loyalist from the White House legal staff who developed the White House strategy of denying information to Congress during the impeachment probe.
• Replaced the acting inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services after publicly blasting her report documenting critical shortages of protective equipment at hospitals.

But don’t worry. Chuck Grassley has written a letter!

In fact, he has written two. And they contain stern phrases about how the administration “appears to have circumvented Congress’s role” and its “obvious conflicts that unduly threaten the statutorily required independence of inspectors general.”

Trump predictably ignored Grassley, then finally had the White House counsel respond Tuesday by telling Grassley to pound sand. Grassley noted that the response did not offer a “good reason” for Trump’s actions and said “the American people will be left speculating whether political or self interests are to blame.”

Ya think?

But Trump can safely stiff Grassley because he knows the senator won’t back up his words. He’ll support fig-leaf legislation (blocking political appointees from serving as acting IGs) that won’t prevent Trump from firing inspectors who hold him to account.

Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, could stop Trump in his tracks by blocking his nominees or threatening to discontinue his investigation, at Trump’s behest, into the Bidens.

But few Republicans can withstand the public abuse that comes with defying Trump, and Grassley says he might run for reelection in 2022, when he’ll be 89. In a moment that demands courage, Grassley so far is choosing political self-interest.

“I truly was fooled by Grassley into thinking he cared about this stuff,” Walter Shaub, who resigned as head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics after clashing with Trump, told me Wednesday. “He would have ended his career as a true defender of inspectors general and now he’s going to end his career being complicit in the greatest purge of inspectors general of all time.” And now the White House counsel is “sticking his thumb in Grassley’s eye.”

It’s hard to believe this is the same man who, when President Barack Obama fired the inspector general of AmeriCorps (Obama’s highest-profile IG dismissal and the one most comparable to Trump’s) railed against the White House even after it gave an exhaustive justification, and led a months-long investigation.

Now Trump is coercing acting inspectors to refrain from investigating his administration, dismissing them if they do. The Project on Government Oversight counts 15 inspector-general vacancies, which are filled by acting officials. When the Department of Homeland Security’s acting IG issued reports critical of the administration, Trump replaced her with an inspector who scaled back the office’s audits and reports by about 75 percent.

Worse, Trump’s choices for the IG positions at Transportation and State are senior managers in those departments who would continue in their previous roles — allowing them to police themselves, with the power to learn the identity of whistleblowers.

The attempt to skirt accountability goes further. The administration demoted Rick Bright, who had led the government’s vaccine research, when he raised concerns about the pandemic response. Trump forced out two national intelligence directors in an effort to find a more pliant one and he ousted an FBI director and an attorney general because they didn’t block probes of his advisers. The White House attacked one of the president’s own ethics appointees for recommending Kellyanne Conway’s dismissal for violating the Hatch Act.

During impeachment, Republicans upheld the White House refusal to provide documents and testimony to Congress, and the Supreme Court has delayed a decision on Congress’s demands for information from the administration until after the election.

This leaves the fate of government accountability to Grassley. He says the White House has “failed” to meet the IG statute’s requirements, and he protests the “glaring conflict of interest” that could make watchdogs “agency lapdogs.”

Good words. But they mean nothing if Grassley won’t risk political heat to protect his 40-year legacy.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

So Grassley has grown a small (and likely temporary) set of balls: "Sen. Grassley blocks two Trump nominees in protest over inspector general firings"

Spoiler

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) blocked two of President Trump’s nominees Thursday in a rare move by a Republican senator to demand accountability from the president over his recent firings of several federal watchdogs.

Grassley, a longtime advocate for inspectors general, announced Thursday afternoon that he is blocking the nominations of Christopher Miller to head the National Counterterrorism Center and Marshall Billingslea to be the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security.

Miller is an Army Special Forces veteran serving as a Pentagon special operations and counterterrorism official, while Billingslea is assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department.

Grassley said he will not allow consideration of Miller’s nomination to proceed until the White House provides answers on Trump’s firing in April of intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson.

Billingslea’s nomination, Grassley said, cannot proceed until Trump explains why he terminated State Department inspector general Steve Linick last month. Trump abruptly fired Linick at what both he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said was Pompeo’s request, although the details remain unclear.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Inspectors general serve as internal government watchdogs conducting oversight of federal agencies — and although they technically are political appointees, their independence has long been protected.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has fired or pushed aside a total of five inspectors general. In addition to Atkinson and Linick, he has pushed out Glenn Fine, chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration’s management of the government’s $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package. He removed Christi Grimm as principal deputy inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, after Grimm’s office criticized the administration’s response to the pandemic. And he replaced the acting inspector general at the Department of Transportation.

Democrats have denounced the firings as a retaliatory purge and an effort by Trump to avoid accountability. Several lawmakers, including Grassley, have sought answers from Trump beyond his citing of a general lack of confidence in the watchdogs.

In a statement explaining his move Thursday, Grassley said he does not dispute Trump’s authority to fire the inspectors general, but he argued that “without sufficient explanation, the American people will be left speculating whether political or self-interests are to blame.”

“Though the Constitution gives the president the authority to manage executive branch personnel, Congress has made it clear that should the president find reason to remove an inspector general, there ought to be a good reason for it,” Grassley said. “The White House’s response failed to address this requirement, which Congress clearly stated in statute and accompanying reports.”

Grassley had previously written to Trump on the issue, arguing that his broad declarations of a lack of confidence were “not sufficient” to fulfill the requirements of the 2008 Inspector General Reform Act.

Atkinson said in April that he believes he was fired for having properly handled a whistleblower complaint that became a centerpiece of the case for Trump’s impeachment.

Linick, meanwhile, appeared before Congress on Wednesday in a virtual, closed-door session. But lawmakers of both parties said they came away with little better sense of the specifics surrounding his termination.

Pompeo has previously said that Linick pursued investigations of policies he disagreed with, that his office was responsible for leaks, and that he was not supportive of the secretary’s “ethos statement” on department behavior.

According to a person familiar with Wednesday’s congressional interview, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the closed-door session, Linick confirmed that his office was looking into allegations that Pompeo and his wife asked personnel to do personal errands for them, as well as the administration’s bypassing of congressional approval for arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but he declined to speculate as to whether either of those matters had prompted his firing.

 

[hoipolloi]

Lindsey Graham may have executed his last NDA:

 

[fraurosena]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

So Grassley has grown a small (and likely temporary) set of balls: "Sen. Grassley blocks two Trump nominees in protest over inspector general firings"

  Reveal hidden contents

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) blocked two of President Trump’s nominees Thursday in a rare move by a Republican senator to demand accountability from the president over his recent firings of several federal watchdogs.

Grassley, a longtime advocate for inspectors general, announced Thursday afternoon that he is blocking the nominations of Christopher Miller to head the National Counterterrorism Center and Marshall Billingslea to be the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security.

Miller is an Army Special Forces veteran serving as a Pentagon special operations and counterterrorism official, while Billingslea is assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department.

Grassley said he will not allow consideration of Miller’s nomination to proceed until the White House provides answers on Trump’s firing in April of intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson.

Billingslea’s nomination, Grassley said, cannot proceed until Trump explains why he terminated State Department inspector general Steve Linick last month. Trump abruptly fired Linick at what both he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said was Pompeo’s request, although the details remain unclear.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Inspectors general serve as internal government watchdogs conducting oversight of federal agencies — and although they technically are political appointees, their independence has long been protected.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has fired or pushed aside a total of five inspectors general. In addition to Atkinson and Linick, he has pushed out Glenn Fine, chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration’s management of the government’s $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package. He removed Christi Grimm as principal deputy inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, after Grimm’s office criticized the administration’s response to the pandemic. And he replaced the acting inspector general at the Department of Transportation.

Democrats have denounced the firings as a retaliatory purge and an effort by Trump to avoid accountability. Several lawmakers, including Grassley, have sought answers from Trump beyond his citing of a general lack of confidence in the watchdogs.

In a statement explaining his move Thursday, Grassley said he does not dispute Trump’s authority to fire the inspectors general, but he argued that “without sufficient explanation, the American people will be left speculating whether political or self-interests are to blame.”

“Though the Constitution gives the president the authority to manage executive branch personnel, Congress has made it clear that should the president find reason to remove an inspector general, there ought to be a good reason for it,” Grassley said. “The White House’s response failed to address this requirement, which Congress clearly stated in statute and accompanying reports.”

Grassley had previously written to Trump on the issue, arguing that his broad declarations of a lack of confidence were “not sufficient” to fulfill the requirements of the 2008 Inspector General Reform Act.

Atkinson said in April that he believes he was fired for having properly handled a whistleblower complaint that became a centerpiece of the case for Trump’s impeachment.

Linick, meanwhile, appeared before Congress on Wednesday in a virtual, closed-door session. But lawmakers of both parties said they came away with little better sense of the specifics surrounding his termination.

Pompeo has previously said that Linick pursued investigations of policies he disagreed with, that his office was responsible for leaks, and that he was not supportive of the secretary’s “ethos statement” on department behavior.

According to a person familiar with Wednesday’s congressional interview, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the closed-door session, Linick confirmed that his office was looking into allegations that Pompeo and his wife asked personnel to do personal errands for them, as well as the administration’s bypassing of congressional approval for arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but he declined to speculate as to whether either of those matters had prompted his firing.

 

Not so much balls, I believe, but knowledge that Trump’s time is almost up. He’s simply one of the first to begin to tentatively distance himself in a bid to save his political hide. More are sure to follow in the coming months.

[fraurosena]

She does not say outright that Rand Paul is a racist, but you can hear it clearly between the lines.

 

[JMarie]

On 6/5/2020 at 4:24 AM, fraurosena said:

Not so much balls, I believe, but knowledge that Trump’s time is almost up. He’s simply one of the first to begin to tentatively distance himself in a bid to save his political hide. More are sure to follow in the coming months.

Grassley's also not up for re-election until 2024, when he'll be 91. He's safe for the next four years.

[GreyhoundFan]

As much as I'd love Elizabeth Warren to be president or VP, I think she'd be tremendously effective as Secretary of Treasury or Commerce:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Hey @47of74 -- I'm guessing you won't be standing in line for an autographed copy...

 

[47of74]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Hey @47of74 -- I'm guessing you won't be standing in line for an autographed copy...

 

Nah. If it was free I’d pick up a copy so I could use it as toilet paper. 

[fraurosena]

If you're not following Ron Perlman yet on Twitter, you're missing out. His spats with politicians are hilarious. This is his latest with Ted Cruz. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Amen