US House of Representatives 4: Day One And The Clown Caucus is Already in Disarray.

[CTRLZero]

15 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

He's really working hard for his constituents:

I just can’t get over how stupid he seems.  Did he lose that many brain cells while on duty?  🤷‍♀️ 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

I just can’t get over how stupid he seems.  Did he lose that many brain cells while on duty?  🤷‍♀️ 

Well, Everything Trump Touches Dies. I’m guessing that includes Ronny’s brain cells. 

[GreyhoundFan]

The clown caucus in action:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The clown caucus demonstrates why rethuglikans should not be in charge of anything:

"House heads home after hard-right Republicans defy McCarthy, block legislation"

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A two-day stalemate between hard-right Republicans and GOP leaders has effectively frozen the House from considering any legislation for the foreseeable future, as both groups failed to find a resolution to the standoff that would allow the majority to vote on bills.

Just past 6 p.m. Wednesday, after GOP leaders gave up on resolving the impasse this week and canceled the remaining votes for the week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) addressed reporters and explained that part of the ongoing frustration is the hard-line faction’s inability to articulate their demands.

“This is the difficult thing,” he said. “Some of these members, they don’t know what to ask for.”

McCarthy met with several members of the House Freedom Caucus on multiple occasions Wednesday to negotiate on their demands after 11 lawmakers — still angry over McCarthy’s handling of the debt ceiling bill — voted with Democrats against passing a rule Tuesday that would have set parameters for debate of several noncontroversial bills this week.

The blockade presents a high-stakes challenge for McCarthy as he seeks to assuage the myriad demands by the far-right faction of conference; previous Republican speakers have had to confront similar challenges before they were eventually forced out of the position. The conflict not only threatens McCarthy’s tenure with the speaker’s gavel, but also the House’s ability to take up any legislation, contributing to growing irritation within the razor-thin majority.

McCarthy admitted Wednesday he had been “blindsided” by Tuesday’s blocked vote, which became the first House rule vote to fail since November 2002. But he insisted that the Republican conference would emerge stronger, in similar fashion to when the same group of lawmakers challenged his bid to becoming speaker.

Speaking to reporters after having just come from a reception for his mentor, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who often clashed with his junior rank-and-file Republicans during his tumultuous four-year stint, McCarthy tried to project the same optimism he exhibited in January when it took 15 rounds of voting and multiple concessions for him to win the speakership.

“We’ll listen to them, we’ll solve this, just like every time we go through here,” McCarthy said. “We’ve got a small majority. There’s a little chaos going on.”

The surprise rebuke underscored the anger that several members of the Freedom Caucus and other hard-right conservatives still harbored toward Republican leadership over their willingness to allow Democrats to vote in support of the debt bill and override their concerns before sending it to the Senate, where it also passed in bipartisan fashion. President Biden signed the deal over the weekend, barely skirting a catastrophic default that had been projected for Monday.

McCarthy, Biden and their lieutenants had brokered a deal days before to suspend the debt ceiling until 2025 and cut federal spending, prompting outrage from several hard-right GOP lawmakers who argued that the bill did not cut spending enough — and who accused McCarthy of violating several promises that they say helped them elect him speaker.

At the center of the far-right’s concern is an argument that McCarthy violated an agreement several of them struck in January in exchange for supporting his speakership bid. No list of those promises made exists publicly, so it’s unclear exactly what lawmakers and McCarthy agreed to. But several members of the Freedom Caucus have claimed he violated three main components of the agreement: Supporting legislation that reduces spending back to 2022 appropriation levels; putting legislation on the floor that is not passed overwhelmingly by Democrats; and not taking up bills that don’t have unanimous support from Republicans on the House Rules Committee.

Ahead of a meeting with Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.), McCarthy accused the group of “moving the goal post.”

“We never promised we’re going to be all at ’22 levels. I said we would strive to get to the ’22 level or the equivalent amount of cut. We’ve met all that criteria,” McCarthy said. “I think we kind of hit the sweet spot. The difficult part is, when anytime you try to work any type of agreement, you’re not going to get 100 percent of what you want. But think of what we did achieve.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), one of the lawmakers who voted against the rule vote on Tuesday, said Wednesday that he did so because Republican leadership had “not taken reckless spending” seriously, and again alluded to unspoken promises he said GOP leadership had made.

“There are over a thousand unauthorized government programs that continue to be funded without oversight, Congressional hearings, or a reauthorization vote,” Buck said in a statement. “Promises were made earlier this year regarding spending; I expect those commitments to be kept.”

Throughout Wednesday morning, the group of disrupters met and spoke with McCarthy and his team. Leadership remains unclear what exactly the group of 11 Republicans want, and different members want different things, making it more difficult to address their concerns, according to four people close to leadership who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Holdouts are pushing for immediate consideration of a bill proposed by Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) regarding pistol braces. Clyde accused Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) of threatening to hold the bill from consideration in the full House if Clyde voted against the debt deal. Scalise has denied the accusation, saying he only informed Clyde that his bill couldn’t be brought onto the floor until it had enough GOP support.

Another bill being discussed would permanently codify the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds from being used for abortion services, with some exceptions. The bill was on a list Scalise had proposed would be on the floor the first two weeks of January, but it has been shelved because there are not enough votes to pass it through the Republicans’ slim majority.

Whether an agreement related to those bills has been found remains unclear, but many saw the announcement that the House would adjourn until Monday as an ominous sign no progress had been made.

While Republican leaders were trying to negotiate with members of the Freedom Caucus, an equally important discussion about the House’s future was taking place in Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s (R-Minn.) office. Emmer and his chief deputy, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), met a dozen moderate lawmakers who represent swing districts to discuss what legislation they would like to see be considered on the House floor, according to six people familiar with the meeting.

Though the meeting was not called in response to the standoff with the hard-right members, lawmakers discussed the need to vote on measures that would help voters understand that a Republican majority is passing bills that help their pocketbook. Most lawmakers were critical that what they would like to see passed could possibly be blocked if the Freedom Caucus forbids votes on bipartisan bills.

Meanwhile, other Republicans waiting to be told of what happens next were growing frustrated. Several governance-minded Republicans privately expressed their frustration that a small faction of their conference continues to hold up “the majority of the majority” from doing their basic job in elected office and voting — with little optimism that things change when lawmakers return on Monday.

“This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves and can’t do anything about. This is insane,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said. “This is not the way a governing majority is expected to behave. And frankly, I think there’ll be a political cost to it.”

Womack did not save criticism for leaders, noting that rank-and-file members had not heard from their leadership all day about what was happening Wednesday.

“You got the tail wagging the dog. You got a small group of people who are pissed off that are keeping the house of representatives from functioning today, and I think the American people are not going to take too kindly to that,” he added.

You know, I didn't always agree with Nancy, but she knew how to manage her people.

[GreyhoundFan]

Poor Qevin is probably on the verge of tears.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The clown caucus in action: "In the House, a spectacular flameout"

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What a gas!

A week ago, Speaker Kevin McCarthy was king of the world. “Tonight we all made history,” he announced after the bipartisan debt deal sailed through the House. “There’s a whole new day here,” he proclaimed.

He then proceeded to do the legislative equivalent of slipping on a banana peel, pulling down the drapes, knocking over a fully laden buffet and face planting into the wedding cake.

Just six days after his triumph, a small band of right-wing zealots who opposed the debt deal used parliamentary tactics to bring proceedings on the House floor to a halt, in the first protest of its kind in more than two decades. They shut down the House for a couple of hours, then for the entire day, then for the next day. After 6 p.m. on Wednesday, House GOP leaders surrendered to the saboteurs with a whip notice: “Members are advised that votes are no longer expected in the House this week. … Thank you all for your patience.”

The mutineers were in command of the ship. They blamed McCarthy for betraying them. McCarthy blamed Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Scalise blamed McCarthy. Negotiations went nowhere. And the People’s House ceased to function.

In truth, McCarthy had only himself to blame. The debt deal, which earned the votes of 2 in 3 Republicans and 4 in 5 Democrats, gave him a template for success. But instead of using it, he launched a doomed effort to win back the far right — with some classic gaslighting.

GOP leaders followed the classic culture-war script: Conjure up a crisis — in this case, the canard that the Biden administration is coming to take away your gas stove — and then force votes on legislation to counter the nonexistent threat.

“That’s what we’re seeing from the Biden administration, literally a plan to ban gas stoves,” Scalise (La.) declared on Tuesday morning in a news conference on the upcoming votes on the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Save Our Gas Stoves Act.

President Biden “has a war against gas stoves!” added Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.).

Biden “literally” has no such plan, other than the usual rules requiring higher efficiency in future appliance models. (One of the Consumer Product Safety commissioners mused publicly about a ban on future gas stoves, but the idea was immediately shot down by his superiors.) Regardless, the House GOP leaders’ cooked-up stove crisis had the desired effect of causing everybody to retreat behind party lines.

At a House Rules Committee hearing Monday afternoon on what Republicans called the Biden administration’s “proposal to ban gas stoves,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) tore into what she called “this whole insane, ridiculous gas-stove conspiracy theory. It is so absurd. It really is off the charts even for this House majority.” She closed her remarks: “This is bulls---. Sorry.”

On the Republican side of the panel, Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) tried to burn Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce committee.

“Mr. Pallone, do you own a gas stove?” Massie demanded. “Does it meet the new standards or not?”

Pallone allowed that he hadn’t “checked the stove before I came here” but reminded Massie that the improved efficiency standard “doesn’t affect any stove that you have now.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) gave the half-baked bills the ridicule they deserved, offering the Rules committee several amendments, because “I don’t think the bills go far enough.” He proposed renaming the bill “ ‘The Appliance Bill of Rights,’ to put it on par with some of our most important rights as Americans.” He also proposed erecting “a stainless steel, six-burner double oven in Statuary Hall” to give gas stoves “the honor that they deserve.”

The House had returned to pointless partisan sniping over a fake crisis addressed by legislation that stood no chance of becoming law. McCarthy’s plan appeared to be working!

Then, without warning, the right-wing holdouts struck. Eleven of them voted with Democrats against the rules for debate, without which the debate could not begin. At 2 p.m., the speaker pro tempore ordered a five-minute vote. It lasted for 53 minutes as GOP leaders, upon discovering the rebellion, tried to persuade the House Freedom Caucus holdouts to relent.

The vote failed — the first such rebuke to leadership since 2002. The House went into recess. A thousand painful puns ignited. “House Republicans couldn’t pass gas,” ventured Politico.

For three days, the rebels went in and out of McCarthy’s office. Scalise tried to placate them by promising to schedule a vote on a bill, offered by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia at this time of daily mass shootings, to roll back gun regulations. (Clyde had claimed GOP leaders threatened to kill his bill as punishment for opposing the debt deal.) But that didn’t stem the rebellion.

McCarthy gallantly placed culpability for the debacle on Scalise (“the majority leader runs the floor”), specifically the “miscalculation, or misinterpretation” with Clyde.

Scalise returned the favor, telling Punchbowl News that there’s “a lot of anger” at McCarthy, and the speaker has to “resolve those issues.”

But trying to satisfy the extremists (who, as McCarthy noted, haven’t articulated coherent demands) is pointless. As long as McCarthy attempts to appease them, any hope of actual legislative achievement will be on the back burner. And any hope for a successful speakership will go up in smoke.

A couple of months ago, Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced that they would be bringing in Tara Reade, the woman who accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s, for a transcribed interview as part of what they called a joint inquiry by the House Oversight and Judiciary committees.

The logistics, however, just got a bit trickier. Reade has defected to Russia.

“I’d like to apply for citizenship in Russia from the president of the Russian federation, Vladimir Putin,” she said from Moscow on May 30 in an event hosted by the state-owned news agency Sputnik. “Hopefully, Maria Butina can help me with that from the state Duma,” she added. Butina, with whom Reade shared the stage, was convicted in the United States of being an unregistered Russian agent and is now in the Russian parliament.

Reade, who hopes also to keep her U.S. passport (good luck with that), said she went to Russia after Gaetz told her “I’m worried about your physical safety in the United States.”

She spent the session in Moscow denouncing the United States for its “crashing” economy, inflation, homelessness, child poverty, decaying roads, hunger, poor medical care and its “evil” determination to “warmonger” in Ukraine.

Best of all, she expressed indignation that “I was accused when I first came forward of being a Russian asset.” She seemed unaware of the irony that she was, at that very moment, the star of a Russian propaganda operation.

Replied the Sputnik moderator to the aspiring defector: “The attempt by the USA government to accuse you of ties with Russia is just outrageous.”

The curious case of Comrade Reade is just the latest instance in which the Venn diagram of Republican political interests and Russian propaganda interests has shown an uncomfortable amount of overlap. GOP lawmakers have repeatedly been cautioned by national security officials that they were advancing, or were targets of, Russian disinformation.

This isn’t to say the Republicans are wittingly spouting Russian propaganda. Nor does it mean that all of the allegations they make on topics such as Hunter Biden’s business dealings are necessarily false. But there’s an undeniable similarity between the Russian and Republican attacks on President Biden and his policies — and the two merged in the Russian state media event featuring Reade.

Reade called herself a “whistleblower” who will be “testifying … about how the DOJ and the FBI has [been] weaponized by the Biden administration against its own citizens.” House Republicans created a “weaponization” committee under Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) devoted to precisely that.

Reade alleged that the Biden administration was “infiltrating social media suppress the truth” and particularly to “suppress” the New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Republicans have held numerous hearings in a fruitless quest to demonstrate that.

Reade alleged that in the “corruption” case against Biden, House investigators have “bank receipts and proof that unfortunately when Joe Biden was vice president, he was influence peddling and created shell companies.” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has likewise alleged that in his “Biden family corruption investigation” he found that Biden arranged an “influence-peddling” scheme through “shell companies.”

Reade suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop and the weaponization matters, despite a “complete media blackout,” have caused a drop in Biden’s “poll numbers.” Comer has claimed that Biden’s “poll numbers are low partly because the American people think he’s corrupt, and they sense a cover up.”

And, of course, Reade said Americans are opposed to spending “so much money giving weapons to Ukraine.” House Republicans, likewise, are vowing to block efforts in the Senate to boost funds for Ukraine.

It’s too late for Reade, who has forsaken her country. “I do promise to be a good citizen,” she told the Russians.

But it’s not too late for Republican lawmakers to ask themselves why Putin has such a keen interest in promoting their dubious allegations against Biden.

The new House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, is a skilled and fluid orator — at least when he isn’t being muzzled by the new House Republican majority.

Last week, I observed that Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), taking a turn presiding over the House as speaker pro tempore, took the extraordinary step of gaveling down the minority leader in the middle of his speech. It turns out Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) did the same thing to Jeffries a month earlier.

Speakers pro tempore will frequently admonish a lawmaker who refers to other members directly (Jeffries’s offense was to ask Republicans “why do you lecture us?”) to “direct his remarks to the chair.” But the admonition almost always comes after the offender has yielded the floor.

In a complaint to the House parliamentarian this week also sent to McCarthy, Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), top Democrat on the House Rules committee, noted that, under Democratic control of the chamber, McCarthy had committed the same offense Jeffries (N.Y.) did more than a dozen times — but was never gaveled down mid-speech. McGovern called the new GOP tactic “a tool of the majority to silence and disrupt the minority.”

Selective application of the rules of decorum has been a prominent feature of the new majority. A couple of weeks ago, when a Democratic lawmaker heckled Scalise on the floor, the speaker pro tempore pounded the gavel and said “members are reminded to abide by decorum of the House.” Democrats guffawed. Why? Because the speaker pro tempore demanding “decorum” was Jewish Space Lasers Greene, fresh from attacking a witness for not being a biological mother and from baselessly accusing a Democratic colleague of an affair with a Chinese spy.

And with that, I yield back.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Has there ever been any doubt which side he backs?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A member of the clown caucus:

 

[fraurosena]

I'm convinced the MAGAt-caucus will defend Trump until the very end. They are desperately afraid that if Trump goes down, he will take their own guilty asses with him. Just watch, their frantic antics will get much worse once the Jan 6 indictment drops. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Stop with the whataboutism, Qevin.  The situations are not remotely similar.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, it’s not like Gym wanted to actually practice law. He just wanted to make up crap. 

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Yeah, it’s not like Gym wanted to actually practice law. He just wanted to make up crap. 

 

Well yes, Gym, a president can declassify documents. There is a specific procedure for that. But, and here's the rub, a private citizen can not declassify anything. Even Trump himself admitted (on tape no less!) that he could not declassify the documents anymore. So stop trying to muddy the waters. What a president can or cannot do has nothing whatsoever to do with this indictment. 

[GreyhoundFan]

After Bobo did her usual shouting over the person testifying in the hearing, Rep. Jasmine Crockett slams back:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Qevin and his alt-right nutjobs are continuing to try and blow up Social Security and Medicare. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The rethuglikans are fucking disgusting. "As Trump is arrested, Republicans honor the insurrectionists"

 

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Donald Trump could not have asked for a nicer arraignment-day celebration.

During the very same hour in which the former president surrendered to federal authorities in Miami, his Republican allies in the House were, in their most visible and official way yet, embracing as heroes and martyrs the people who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in hopes of overturning Trump’s election defeat.

In the Capitol complex, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), with sidekick Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and four other far-right lawmakers, held a “hearing” that honored participants in the riot, family members of Jan. 6 rioters and organizers of the attempted overthrow of the 2020 vote.

Technically, Gaetz couldn’t call such a hearing, because he isn’t a committee chairman. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is trying to win back the support of extremists such as Gaetz, let it happen anyway.

Gaetz did his all to make the proceedings look official. There were congressional seals on his nameplate and on the big screen behind him. A meeting room in the Capitol visitor center was arranged to appear like a committee room, with lawmakers facing the witnesses. Gaetz advertised the “field hearing” as part of how “the 118th Congress is investigating the weaponization of the federal government.”

He impersonated a chairman — “you are recognized,” “thank you for your testimony,” “I’ll recognize myself [for] questions,” “her time has expired” — and the others played along (“Thank you for the opportunity to testify,” “I yield back”). Gaetz said testimony could be used “for the official record [of the] House” or for “work in the Judiciary Committee, upon which I serve, or the Oversight Committee.” C-SPAN carried the proceedings live.

The invited witnesses?

• The wife of Ronald McAbee, who is awaiting trial for allegedly attacking a police officer and dragging him into the mob while wearing a black vest that said “SHERIFF.”
• Underwear model John Strand, sentenced to two years and eight months for being part of the mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 and pushed past police officers.
• Activist Brandon Straka, sentenced to home detention and probation and fined for his Jan. 6 actions.
• The aunt of Matthew Perna; Perna committed suicide while awaiting sentencing for his role in breaching the Capitol.
• Ed Martin, an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” effort leading up to Jan. 6.
• And Jeffrey Clark, the Trump Justice Department official who tried to get states to toss the election results.

The lawmakers hailed them all.

“To all of you, my condolences,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who added tenderly that “you know how I feel about Ashli” Babbitt, the woman police shot as she breached the last line of defense protecting lawmakers in the House chamber.

“This is heartbreaking,” added Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), “the way you all have been treated.”

Greene added “my deepest sympathy for each of you and all the pain and suffering that you’ve all had to go through because of this government.” She told them that they were the victims of “sick, evil people” and that she and other lawmakers had a “constitutional duty to object to Joe Biden’s fraudulent electoral college votes because we all believed that the election had been stolen.”

Gaetz opened the hearing with a video suggesting FBI culpability in the Jan. 6 attack. He claimed he “became aware of evidence” that the Justice Department had evidence of “fraud in the election” but Trump Attorney General “Bill Barr was suppressing evidence.”

Gosar blamed the attack on “people undercover, whether it be antifa, FBI, whatever.” Norman suggested that the FBI was framing people who weren’t involved in the attack.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.) offered his view that people in charge in the Capitol (Democrats, presumably) “hid the intelligence” showing that an attack was coming. “It’s like they wanted this to happen.” Nehls added that “I believe Ashli Babbitt was murdered that day,” and he said he hopes Trump will return to power and send the officer who shot her before a grand jury.

From the witness table came howls of “wrongful conviction” and “fascism.” From the dais came a cry of “tyranny.” From both came attacks on judges, juries and prosecutors. Audience members were wearing T-shirts saying rioters had been “murdered by Capitol police.” In the hallway, keeping the peace, were two Capitol Police officers, guarding the people accusing them of murder.

Straka, who on Jan. 6 yelled “go, go, go” to the mob as they tried to breach the Capitol and “take it, take it” when rioters grabbed a shield from a police officer, “testified” to Gaetz’s panel that “we, the defendants of Jan. 6, need to be able to have some sort of voice.”

And now they have that voice: The feckless House Republican leaders who let this week’s abomination occur.

In the Senate, Republican leaders have voiced little support for Trump, with GOP whip John Thune (S.D.) calling the charges “very serious” and Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) calling them “not good.

But in the House, McCarthy has shown no such fortitude, hewing closely to the Fox News assessment of the situation, as expressed in an on-screen “news alert” this week: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”

McCarthy began by calling the indictment a “brazen weaponization of power” and a “grave injustice.” He threatened to block funding for a new FBI headquarters in retaliation. This week, he accused Biden of stealing classified documents from a secure facility, and he said that Trump’s handling of documents (piled in a bathroom) was superior to Biden’s (in a garage) because “a bathroom door locks.”

Will Trump avail himself of the privacy-lock defense? And will anybody have the heart to tell McCarthy that garage doors have locks? Or that bathroom doors only lock from the inside?

McCarthy is acting, as he often does, out of weakness. Taking an honorable position on Trump, as his Senate counterparts did, would antagonize the far right and could topple his historically weak speakership.

And so, there is nobody to tell the looniest members of his caucus to take it down a notch — just as there was nobody to tell Gaetz et alia not to hold a “hearing” glorifying insurrectionists.

There is nobody, for example, to tell Rep. Clay Higgins to cut it out. The Louisiana Republican, who has militia ties and previously threatened violence on social media, tweeted this message about Trump’s arraignment in Miami: “This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.”

Most won’t recognize such QAnon codes: “rPOTUS” means Trump is the “real” president, 1/50K is a military map scale, and “know your bridges” is a reference to preparing attack points, the author Jeff Sharlet, an authority on extremism, has explained.

Scary? Now consider that this dangerous hooligan is the chairman of the border security subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee.

For a group purporting to be concerned about the “weaponization of government,” House Republicans sure seem intent on turning their own corner of the federal government into a tactical nuke.

On the same day as Trump’s arraignment, far-right, first-term representative Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), previously best known for her creatively written résumé, introduced a “privileged resolution” to censure and fine Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) $16 million for his role in leading Trump’s first impeachment. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise promptly pledged to “help it pass” — and put it on the floor Wednesday afternoon.

Luna, full of confidence that her attack on her senior colleague would prevail, told Politico’s Olivia Beavers before the vote that she was acting against Schiff “at the suggestion of a member of leadership.”

Scalise, GOP whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) all voted with Luna. Alas for her, 20 Republicans retained more integrity than their leaders and joined with Democrats to kill Luna’s censure gambit.

It was a temporary reprieve for good sense. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) this week threatened to use the same “privileged-resolution” procedure to bring articles of impeachment against President Biden to the House floor. She joins a crowded impeach-Biden field: At least 11 House Republicans have introduced or co-sponsored impeachment articles against the president.

But first comes the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The proceedings began this week. They’re just not allowed to call it “impeachment” yet.

“We haven’t even gotten to that word,” Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said at a news conference Wednesday, making quotation marks with his fingers.

Green was unveiling the GOP’s don’t-call-it-impeachment inquiry, a “five-phase deep dive” authorized by McCarthy that would prove Mayorkas “has been willfully derelict” and “disregarded his oath.” Explained Green: “We’re going to get more information about the failures of this secretary, and when we’re done we’ll make a recommendation to the Judiciary Committee.”

It’s yet another move by McCarthy to placate the hard right. Reps. Pat Fallon (Tex.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Greene and Higgins have introduced articles of impeachment with a combined 68 co-sponsors. But Republicans don’t have the votes to impeach — in part because they don’t have the goods on Mayorkas.

Illegal crossings of the southern border have dropped 70 percent from their record highs, despite the end of pandemic border restrictions. That’s due in part to toughened Biden-administration policies, including restrictions on asylum. Heightened enforcement has also led to the seizure of record amounts of fentanyl.

Still, Green kicked off the proceedings with a Trumpian flourish. “Murderers released into the United States! Rapists released into the United States!” he shouted in the House television studio. “One-hundred-seven thousand dead Americans … Alejandro Mayorkas’s policies are the cause of all of this!”

Disagreement with Mayorkas’s — and therefore Biden’s — policies doesn’t qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Those trying to weaponize the government against Mayorkas are going to need a better weapon.

Remember when House Republicans cared about the federal debt? That was so two weeks ago.

During the debt ceiling standoff, McCarthy said he was fighting to relieve the crushing burden of the federal debt on future generations, insisting “it’s got to end now.”

But this week, the House Ways and Means Committee passed a three-part bill that would, over the next three years, add $325 billion to the federal debt, according to calculations made by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. That would more than wipe out the $186.1 billion saved over the same period by the debt deal — which Republicans had nearly tanked the economy to achieve just two weeks earlier.

“Republicans, including those on this committee, held our entire U.S. economy hostage, purportedly because you’re concerned about Washington spending and our national debt,” Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) protested at the daylong markup of the bills. “But now, less than two weeks later, you brought before us a bill that would add over a trillion dollars to our national debt.” The trillion-dollar figure comes from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank that calculated that if temporary tax cuts in the bill were made permanent (as often occurs) the bill would actually add $1.1 trillion to the debt through 2033.

How to explain this sudden change of heart about the federal debt? Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) tried objectivism.

“I’m slogging through right now … a 1957 book written by a lady named Ayn Rand, called ‘Atlas Shrugged,’” said Murphy, who apparently just discovered the 20th century champion of self-interest. He cautioned that “it’s very laborious” but “a wonderful lesson.”

Perhaps he was taken by Rand’s admonition to “never live for the sake of another man.” That could account for the House GOP’s approach to this year’s appropriations bills.

McCarthy, in one of his many efforts to placate the far-right dissidents in his caucus, this week agreed to jettison the spending levels he and Biden agreed to in the debt deal. House Republicans will now try to slash spending even further — essentially reneging on the agreement after just two weeks and putting the government on course for a shutdown this fall.

After an appalling spate of mass shootings, the House finally took action on guns this week. Republicans passed, largely along party lines, a bill making it easier to obtain firearms.

Specifically, they voted to strike down new regulations on “stabilizing braces” that make handguns more powerful and deadly — and have been used in several recent massacres.

The primary sponsor of the legislation was Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a gun dealer by trade. If that conflict of interest weren’t jarring enough, the Republican floor leader for part of the debate was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), known for his Christmas card showing each member of his family holding an AR-style weapon.

Massie, railing against gun-free zones, told the House about a former aide whose husband was shot in a bar. She couldn’t fire back, as she had left her own gun in her car because “the sign said ‘No Guns Inside’ because they served alcohol.”

An incredulous Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) took issue with Massie “suggesting that it’s okay for people to carry guns into bars when they are drunk.”

Added McGovern: “This place is crazier than usual.”

All week, it was demonstrably so.

 

[fraurosena]

 

[Dandruff]

3 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

 

That was the most satisfying Twitter post I've seen in a long time.  Thanks for sharing it.

I love Schiff.  Wish he'd run for president.

[fraurosena]

Jerry Nadler is also pretty good.

 

And let's not forget Ted Lieu!

 

[fraurosena]

Eric Swalwell's mike drop.

 

[fraurosena]

@Dandruff, especially for you, here's some more of Adam Schiff's grilling of Durham.

 

[fraurosena]

I guess we can safely say that House Dems aren't beating around the bush anymore.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

So true:

 

[Audrey2]

9 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

So true:

 

No... The tan suit!

[GreyhoundFan]

5 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

No... The tan suit!

Or Biden eating ice cream.

[GreyhoundFan]

Qevin is kowtowing to the Q-nuts again.