US House Of Representatives 3: The Dems Govern While The GQPers Genuflect To The Former Guy

[47of74]

Just saw this in my email this morning. 

 That’s the truth.  Quevin walked right into that one. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, BarbieQ didn't follow the law. Color me surprised. /s

"Boebert pushed to loosen drilling rules. She failed to disclose her husband’s income from energy consulting."

Quote

When Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting Republican firebrand, was running for Congress last year, she traced her income to Shooters Grill, a restaurant she and her husband own in Rifle, Colo.

She suggested her husband also did some consulting, listing “Boebert Consulting — spouse” on her candidate form, but identified his income source as “N/A.”

Only now, with Boebert not just in Congress but on the House Natural Resources Committee, has she revealed that her husband made $478,000 last year working as a consultant for an energy firm. He made $460,000 the year before, she disclosed in a filing Tuesday with the House of Representatives. Her husband, Jayson Boebert, earned that income as a consultant for Terra Energy Productions, according to the filing.

Boebert has been a staunch advocate for the energy industry during her first six months in office, introducing a bill in February seeking to bar the president from issuing moratoriums on oil and gas leasing and permitting on some federal land.

Federal law requires members of Congress, as well as candidates, to file financial disclosure statements that include the income and assets of spouses and dependent children. Boebert’s failure to report her husband’s income from energy consulting plainly violates that requirement, said Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics for the Campaign Legal Center and a former deputy chief counsel in the Office of Congressional Ethics.

“Voters have a right to know what financial interest their elected officials might be beholden to,” he said.

Payne said the matter should be reviewed by the Office of Congressional Ethics to determine whether the discrepancy arose from an oversight or an intentional failure to disclose. An intentional failure “could be criminal,” he said, with the potential to result in “large fines and possible imprisonment.”

Ben Stout, a spokesman for Boebert, did not respond to a request for comment. But he told the Associated Press, which first reported the discrepancy, that “Mr. Boebert has worked in energy production for 18 years and has had Boebert Consulting since 2012.”

Boebert Consulting was formed in 2012 but is classified as delinquent, according to the secretary of state’s office, meaning it hasn’t filed the necessary reports or kept a registered agent on file. No business by the name of Terra Energy Productions is registered in Colorado, according to a database maintained by the secretary of state’s office. Terra Energy Partners is an oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in Houston. The company did not respond to several messages from The Washington Post.

This month, a branch of Terra Energy Partners registered as TEP Rocky Mountain asked Colorado’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to approve without a hearing its application for 17 new gas wells just outside Rifle in Garfield County, Colo., according to a letter to the commission. The application, originally filed in May, has faced blowback from Colorado’s chapter of the Sierra Club, among others.

Boebert’s belated disclosure of her husband’s income came on the same day the Federal Election Commission inquired about her use of campaign funds for personal expenses. A letter from a senior campaign finance analyst at the FEC asked Boebert’s campaign treasurer for additional information about four Venmo payments made in May and June of this year totaling more than $6,000. Filings describe each payment as a “personal expense of Lauren Boebert billed to campaign account in error.” The filings say the “expense has been reimbursed.”

That explanation did not satisfy the FEC analyst, who told the campaign’s treasurer to “inform the Commission of your corrective action immediately in writing and provide photocopies of any refund checks and/or letters reattributing or redesignating the contributions in question.” Boebert’s reelection campaign did not immediately respond to an email from The Post.

Boebert, 34, toppled Scott R. Tipton, a five-term incumbent, in last year’s Republican primary and won handily in the general election for Colorado’s Republican-leaning 3rd District, which encompasses most of the state’s energy-rich Western Slope.

Soon after winning, she began talking about her aspirations for energy development.

“There certainly is uranium that we could work to extract, and I would love to be a part of that,” she told Colorado Public Radio in December 2020.

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[fraurosena]

There will be a lot of Congressional butt-puckering going on right now, so if you notice certain Congressmen walking awkwardly, you'll know the reason.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Louie saying other people are not smart is priceless...

 

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

[Alisamer]

"If you have to carry a card on you to gain access to a restaurant, venue or an event in your own country... that's no longer a free country."

Except if you want to go in a bar, or buy alcohol, or buy cigarettes, or go in an airport, or drive a car, or get insurance to pay for treatment at a doctor or dentist, or...

Or vote, if these dimwits have their way. 

Do they not get how stupid they sound, going off on vaccine requirements while simultaneously trying to pass all sorts of restrictive voter ID requirements?

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Qevin is a moron:

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[fraurosena]

7 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

And on the list of Congresstraitors he goes...

[GreyhoundFan]

Qevin's in-laws fit right in with the grifting GQP:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Shaking my head: "Oklahoma congressman threatened embassy staff as he tried to enter Afghanistan, U.S. officials say"

Quote

The call to the U.S. ambassador to Tajikistan came in Monday. On the line, two U.S. officials said, was Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) with an unusual and urgent request: He needed assistance in transporting a huge amount of cash into the country, saying he was going to neighboring Afghanistan to rescue five American citizens, a woman and her four children, stuck in the country. They planned to hire a helicopter for the effort.

Mullin told the embassy that he planned to fly from Tblisi, Georgia, into Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, in the next few hours and needed the top diplomat’s help, according to the two U.S. officials familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations about a sensitive matter.

The answer was no. Embassy officials told Mullin they could not assist him in skirting Tajikistan’s laws on cash limits on his way to visiting one of the most dangerous places on earth.

Mullin was outraged by the response, the officials said — threatening U.S. ambassador John Mark Pommersheim and embassy staff and demanding to know the name of staff members he was speaking with.

The episode marked Mullin’s second attempt to travel to Afghanistan in as many weeks for an unauthorized evacuation effort despite the perilous security environment. Last week, Mullin traveled to Greece and asked the Department of Defense for permission to visit Kabul. The Pentagon denied Mullin’s request, an administration official said.

Mullin’s behavior has alarmed top U.S. officials who say he has gone to extraordinary lengths to defy U.S. warnings. The attempt follows an unauthorized trip to Afghanistan by Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass) and Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) last week, which Pentagon and State Department officials criticized as a public relations stunt that sapped government resources during a national-security crisis.

As of late Tuesday, U.S. officials said they were unsure of Mullin’s location. Mullin’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment before this story published. After it published, Meredith Blanford, a spokeswoman for Mullin, put out a statement saying that Mullin “has been and is currently completely safe” and that he and his office “will continue to do anything in our power to bring home all Americans from the war zone that President Biden abandoned.” The statement said the office had no further comment.

“To say this is extremely dangerous is a massive understatement,” said a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation.

The remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan left on Monday, bringing an end to America’s longest war. The U.S. military helped evacuate more than 120,000 people, including U.S. citizens, allies and at-risk Afghans. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that fewer than 200 American citizens remain in Afghanistan. The department suspended embassy operations and relocated its mission to Qatar, where diplomats are trying to find ways for the remaining Americans and at-risk Afghans in the country to leave.

The State Department reissued a Level 4 travel advisory for the country on Monday urging Americans not to travel there “due to civil unrest, armed conflict, crime, terrorism, kidnapping, and COVID-19.”

The State Department declined to comment on Mullin’s travel or interactions with the embassy. The White House declined to comment on Mullin but referred to press secretary Jen Psaki’s comments from last week urging Americans not to travel to Afghanistan.

Mullin, 44, grew up in Stilwell, Okla., where he was a standout wrestler and earned a scholarship to Missouri Valley College. Injuries derailed his athletic career, and at age 20, he took over his father’s plumbing business. He was also briefly a professional mixed martial arts fighter, and after being elected to Congress in 2012, he became known on the Hill for leading intense workout classes. A member of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Mullin voted against the certification of the 2020 election results.

Unlike Moulton and Meijer, Mullin did not serve in the U.S. military. He has been an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s exit from Afghanistan.

“This is a sad day for our country,” Mullin said in a statement Monday night. “Americans have been stranded in Afghanistan by the Biden Administration and are now left to defend themselves from terrorists overrunning the country. One motto of our military is ‘leave no man behind.’ But today, that’s exactly what President Biden did.”

Mullin’s repeated attempts to enter Afghanistan follow multiple efforts by the Biden administration to dissuade members of Congress from traveling to the country after Moulton and Meijer’s unauthorized trip last week. The two members, who arranged for their own transportation into the country, said they wanted to provide oversight on the evacuation efforts at the airport. They eventually left on a flight used for evacuating Americans and Afghans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has issued several warnings against lawmakers trying to travel there.

“We don’t want anybody to think that this was a good idea and that they should try to follow suit,” she said last week.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) concurred: “I don’t think it’s smart for others to go,” he said last week. “You’re putting yourself — not just yourself, but you’re putting Americans — in harm’s way, if the military has to protect you, which they will do.”

On Tuesday, McCarthy went silent and walked away after being asked if he had spoken to Mullin or if he knew where the Oklahoman was. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm sure Gym will be thrilled to be reminded of the times he shoveled crap:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kevin McCarthy keeps revealing how ugly a GOP House would be"

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Mark this down: If Republicans win the House in the 2022 elections, one of their very first acts in the majority will be to impeach President Biden for the offense of having won the 2020 election.

Okay, that’s a joke. But only partly. Republicans would not put it in those terms, of course, but that would be functionally what they are doing.

We’re now beginning to see just how ugly a House GOP takeover would be for the country. What is unmistakable is that a Republican House would be singularly devoted to using its power to avenge Donald Trump’s 2020 loss — and to whitewashing his efforts to overturn it in every way possible.

Case in point: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has now openly threatened to use a GOP-controlled House to punish private companies that comply with lawful subpoenas issued by the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In an extraordinary statement, McCarthy lashed out at the select committee over its directive earlier this week that telecommunications and social media companies should preserve records that might be relevant to their investigation.

McCarthy said that if these companies turn over any information, they will be in violation of federal law, adding that “a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable.”

That is an explicit threat to use the “Republican majority” — his words — to punish compliance with congressional subpoenas that serve an investigation into an effort to overturn U.S. democracy through mob intimidation and violence.

It should be noted that the select committee hasn’t even issued any subpoenas along these lines. It has only directed the companies to preserve records in preparation for possible ones later.

What’s more, despite McCarthy’s lurid claims about potential lawbreaking by these companies, subpoenas targeting private entities are in fact routine in congressional investigations.

“These companies have a legal obligation to preserve the records," ethics expert Norman Eisen told me. "The committee has the legal authority to get this critically important evidence.”

So McCarthy’s line is utterly bogus. But Democrats cannot stand by in the face of this naked effort to use the threat of a GOP majority to cripple an accounting into an effort to wield mob violence to thwart a legitimately elected government from taking over.

One option for Democrats would be to refer McCarthy’s threat to the House Ethics Committee, Eisen says, under a House rule against bringing discredit on the House. That could result in punitive action, such as censure or a fine.

Indeed, Eisen notes that if the Ethics Committee investigated McCarthy’s threat, it could conceivably find more, by using its power to question McCarthy about his true intentions or even locating evidence that could implicate McCarthy further.

This would require analyzing whether McCarthy’s threat is protected as congressional speech and debate, and if it is not, whether it runs afoul of any federal laws, such as the one prohibiting obstruction of congressional investigations, Eisen says.

That’s what the Ethics Committee should try to determine, Eisen notes, adding that depending on what else is found, a referral to law enforcement cannot be ruled out.

“If the Ethics Committee undertakes an investigation and finds additional evidence that McCarthy is strong-arming these companies or their lobbyists directly, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they could make a referral to DOJ,” Eisen told me.

“I see it as clear obstruction of justice,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) told me. “He’s telling the telecommunications companies to not honor a lawful subpoena, or there could be some penalty down the line.” Swalwell said a referral to the Justice Department should be considered.

Now consider the larger context. This threat comes amid a climate in which some House Republicans are relentlessly downplaying the seriousness of the insurrection, and others have taken to describing the Jan. 6 rioters as akin to victims and heroes.

On some level, many House Republicans plainly think the underlying cause of the rioters was righteous and just, even if they publicly condemn the violence itself. All this comes as Republicans are already pressuring McCarthy to prepare to impeach Biden on invented pretexts, showing that a GOP House would nakedly abuse its power to slake the Trump Rump’s desire for vengeance over 2020.

What’s more, Republicans themselves are implicated in the insurrection. McCarthy may be questioned about screaming at Trump to call off the rioters. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) may be questioned about a Dec. 21 meeting with Trump about subverting Biden’s electors in Congress.

And Democrats say the phone records they may seek could include those of lawmakers, possibly Republicans who talked to Trump in the leadup to and during the violence.

So McCarthy’s threat is really an effort to protect Republicans themselves from accountability. It’s also an effort to carry forward a coverup designed to preserve the myth that a virtuous set of motives undergirded the worst outbreak of U.S. political violence in recent times.

In that context, it’s easy to see how a House GOP majority could use its investigative powers in 2023 to exact retribution against companies that cooperate with the Jan. 6 investigation, even if Democrats still controlled the White House and Senate.

“We ought not to be desensitized to the horrifying implications of what the highest-ranking Republican in the House has suggested,” Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told me. “We ought to be universally condemning that kind of blatant extortion.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gym caught on tape:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Qevin thinks that by sending some fried chicken to the USCP, they'll forget that he doesn't care about them facing down the crazed insurrectionists egged on by his lord and master, TFG.

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Dana Milbank: "Kevin McCarthy is the O.J. Simpson of Jan. 6"

Quote

“I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole and Mr. Goldman.”

— O.J. Simpson, vowing to find the real killers

“We will run our own investigation.”

— Kevin McCarthy, vowing to find the real insurrectionists

Last Thursday was another key day in House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s pitched battle against reality — and the English language.

On abortion: “We’ve watched babies survive at 13 weeks and others, that be as small as an M&M wrapper and be able to have life,” he told California’s KGET-TV.

An M&M wrapper? An Eminem rapper?

On Afghanistan: “We’ve watched the biggest military failure that we have watched in my history of my life.”

Vietnam must not be in his history of his life.

And then, the coup de grace. How deeply, an interviewer asked, was President Donald Trump involved in the events of Jan. 6?

“The FBI has investigated this,” McCarthy replied. “The Senate had bipartisan committees that come back. And you know what they have found? That there is no involvement.”

No involvement! No collusion! It was a perfect call.

To the extent that McCarthy has control over what comes out of his mouth, what he voiced was a lie. The Senate probe avoided the question of Trump’s role, and the FBI has reached no such conclusion. (McCarthy was apparently referring to a Reuters report citing anonymous sources on whether Jan. 6 was the result of a centrally controlled conspiracy.)

McCarthy himself spoke to Trump during the deadly attack. Trump told McCarthy: “I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” Afterward, McCarthy announced, accurately: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”

But now McCarthy embodies the corruption of truth that has consumed the GOP. He led the effort to kill an independent, bipartisan Jan. 6 commission negotiated by his own point man. He then marshaled Republican votes against the bill creating the House select committee to scrutinize the attack. Next, he appointed two saboteurs to the committee (one with an obvious conflict), and when Speaker Nancy Pelosi objected, he called a Republican boycott of the panel.

Now he’s threatening telecom companies that cooperate with the committee’s request to preserve phone and social media records of people (including lawmakers) who may have been involved in the insurrection. A future “Republican majority will not forget,” he threatened, and would hold cooperating companies “fully accountable.”

What did McCarthy mean? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), a rising power in the House GOP, explained on Fox News that if telecom companies “go along with this, they will be shut down — and that’s a promise.”

These would seem like the actions of an authoritarian state, but Justice McCarthy assures us that “the Supreme Court” supports his position.

Of course, McCarthy hasn’t launched the Republicans’ Jan. 6 “investigation” he promised in July. House GOP aides told the Daily Beast “they hadn’t seen any indication that such a probe is imminent.”

Instead, House Republicans rally around the perpetrators of Jan. 6. Twenty-one of them voted against honoring the police for their heroism during the insurrection. More than a dozen demanded that Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) be expelled from the GOP caucus for serving on the select committee.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (N.C.) last week joined the swelling ranks of House Republicans championing those facing charges for their actions on Jan. 6. Calling them “political hostages” and “political prisoners,” he warned of future “bloodshed” if our elections “continue to be stolen” and said, “We are actively working on” another mass action in Washington. “We have a few plans in motion I can’t make public right now,” he said. “There are a lot of Republicans who don’t want to talk about this.”

Cawthorn (who hasn’t been punished or even contradicted by McCarthy) denied he was encouraging violence. But hundreds of far-right activists, organized by a former Trump campaign operative, are planning to come to the Capitol on Sept. 18 to seek “justice” for those detained on charges related to the insurrection.

Maybe this is the “investigation” McCarthy had in mind?

As The Post’s Paul Kane noted over the weekend, former House speaker Paul Ryan and even former vice president Mike Pence have participated in a post-Trump lecture series at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Pence recalled how he and lawmakers “fulfilled our duty” on Jan. 6 to certify President Biden’s win. Ryan condemned “the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago.”

Meanwhile, McCarthy — “my Kevin” to Trump — was one of those “flatterers” flocking to Mar-a-Lago soon after the insurrection, and again in July. He “regularly boasts of his calls with the ex-president,” Kane wrote.

Very chatty! But when it comes to the first sacking of the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812, McCarthy zips it. “There’s nothing I have that can add to that day,” he said last week.

Rest assured: He’s still seeking the real culprits — just like O.J.

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Topaz]

7 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

 

I wonder if he’s just trying to undermine TFG’s hold on the GQP or if he’s being tactical.  I suspect some of TFG’s candidates are too extreme to be electable (in seats where there is actually a contest), or too extreme for Qevin to control once they get into Congress. 

[apple1]

20 hours ago, Topaz said:

I wonder if he’s just trying to undermine TFG’s hold on the GQP or if he’s being tactical.  I suspect some of TFG’s candidates are too extreme to be electable (in seats where there is actually a contest), or too extreme for Qevin to control once they get into Congress. 

Probably THAT. Even for McCarthy, there is a bridge too far.

[GreyhoundFan]

Good grief:

 

[fraurosena]

30 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief:

 

Aww, poor baby has such hurteded feefees because of criticism about her education and qualifications that she feels the need to make this feeble and silly excuse. As if declaring to hear the voice of a deity doesn't raise further doubts about her mental state.and capacity to serve.

She is a living, breathing example of why there should be minimum requirements for candidates for Congres.