stonewall shred obstruct
see note memo document
NEGLECTED?
12 22 update broaden disambig: only function of gop troll Fox is to attack dems, no principle or much less policy solution [bonus if you think gov't action automatically you need not offer any; plus rage grifters do not benefit cash in on bring policy
disambig : polarysis vs obstruction? one is structural vs mcconnell obstruction/kneejerk anti-BO djt?
recall mcc said when BO elected they would obstruct everything, said // about Biden, BBB? 921 threat to vote ~ debt ceiling "hostage worth shooting"?!
1 24 REMINDED OF CAT BY
RECALL FOX SOP RAISON D’ETRE IS TO ATTACK DEMS
https://www.alternet.org/tucker-carlson-2658998824/
On Wednesday, December 21, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Joe Biden in the White House and gave an English-language speech during a joint session of Congress.
This was Zelenskyy’s first visit to the United States since Russian forces, on orders from President Vladimir Putin, launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine on February 21. During his speech before Congress, Vice President Kamala Harris and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood behind Zelenskyy while holding up a Ukrainian flag in solidarity with his country.
But some far-right MAGA Republicans were not happy to see Zelenskyy getting a warm reception from Biden, Harris, Pelosi and other Democrats. And libertarian/conservative journalist Cathy Young calls out those MAGA Republicans in a biting article published by The Bulwark on December 22 and headlined, “Putin’s Useful Idiots: Right Wingers Lose It Over Zelenskyy Visit.”
Young observes, “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s surprise arrival in Washington on Wednesday for a meeting with President Joe Biden and a speech before Congress has unhinged the always-seething anti-Ukraine Trumpian right, triggering a deluge of snark and grievance…. ‘National conservative’ pundit and Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer, who played the ‘obviously, Putin is a thug and Ukraine is the victim here, but….’ game in the early days of the war, went full Putin this time around.”
Hammer, on December 21, tweeted, “Raise your hand if you are personally DONE with the Ukraine gravy train.” And Republican activist Donald Trump Jr., on Twitter, posted, “Zelenskyy is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.”
“To top it off, Hammer, who shares Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage, also accused the Ukrainian president of being a bad Jew — unseemly under any circumstances, but all the more so considering that only a few days earlier, Hammer had been spotted at a New York Young Republicans’ Club Gala in the company of various alt-right types with, shall we say, a complicated relationship to antisemitism,” Young writes. “Among them: Rep. Marjorie ‘Jewish Space Lasers’ Taylor Greene, the founders of the white nationalist website VDARE, and erstwhile Jew-baiting troll Jack Posobiec.”
Young notes that the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh said of Zelenskyy, “Get this grifting leech out of our country please,” while Fox News’ Tucker Carlson mocked Zelenskyy as a “Ukrainian strip club manager” and said of his visit to the U.S., “It may be impossible to imagine a more humiliating scenario for the greatest country on Earth.”
MAGA conspiracy theorist Benny Johnson and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk slammed Zelenskyy for wearing casual attire during his speech before Congress.
Young writes, “A few other right-wing pundits, including career plagiarist-turned-conspiracy-theory-peddler Benny Johnson and Turning Point USA grifting leech Charlie Kirk, homed in on the really important stuff: Zelenskyy’s outfit…. Of course, Zelenskyy’s clothes were meant to visually convey the fact that he’s in the middle of a brutal war. When you’re just back from a visit to the front lines in an area that looks like a ghost warscape from World War I come back to life, you’ve earned the right to make that particular fashion statement — even on a visit to Washington, D.C.”
The libertarian/conservative journalist goes on to offer some reasons why many MAGA Republicans have such intense “hatred” for Zelenskyy.
“The question of why the Trumpian populist right is so consumed with hatred for Ukraine — a hatred that clearly goes beyond concerns about U.S. spending, a very small portion of our military budget, or about the nonexistent involvement of American troops — doesn’t have a simple answer, Young explains. “Partly, it’s simply partisanship: If the libs are for it, we’re against it, and the more offensively the better. And if the pre-Trump Republican establishment is also for it, then we’re even more against it. Partly, it’s the belief that Ukrainian democracy is a Biden/Obama/Hillary Clinton/‘Deep State’ project, all the more suspect because it’s related to Trump’s first impeachment.”
Young continues, “Partly, it’s the ‘national conservative’ distaste for liberalism — not only in its American progressive iteration, but in the more fundamental sense that includes conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: the outlook based on individual freedom and personal autonomy, equality before the law, limited government, and an international order rooted in those values. Many NatCons are far more sympathetic to Russia’s crusade against secular liberalism than to Ukraine’s desire for integration into liberal, secular Europe. Whatever the reason, the anti-Ukraine animus on the right is quite real and widespread.”
https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/mitch-mcconnell/
i wd have thot this impossible/popular?! BBB --> IRA
no lnx twt
senate Republicans on Sunday successfully stripped a proposed $35 per month cap on out-of-pocket spending on insulin for patients enrolled in private insurance from the tax and climate bill making its way through the Senate.
The Senate parliamentarian had earlier ruled that the provision, sponsored by Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, is not primarily related to the federal budget and thus not eligible for a reconciliation bill. The ruling gave Republicans a chance to kill the proposal.
Waiving the rules required 60 votes to succeed.Only seven Republicans sided with Democrats to keep the insulin cap in the bill with a 57-43 vote.
“Republicans have just gone on the record in favor of expensive insulin,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden said. “After years of tough talk about taking on insulin makers, Republicans have once against wilted in the face of heat from Big Pharma.Fortunately, the $35 insulin copay cap for insulin in Medicare remains in the bill, so seniors will get relief from high insulin costs. I will continue working to deliver lower insulin costs to all Americans.”
"Republicans just forced out of the reconciliation bill a $35/month out-of-pocket cap for insulin users with private health insurance. What the hell is wrong with them? Really, what the hell is wrong with them?" said Robert Weissman, President ofPublic Citizenin a tweet.
Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr., representing the 9th District of New Jersey, said in a tweet "Here are the McConnell republican senators who just killed capping insulin at $35. Republicans told millions of Americans who use insulin to go to hell. Remember their names."
“Diabetic Americans are being used as political props to play partisan politics while 1 in 4 of us must ration the insulin we need to survive [because] both parties in Congress refuse to regulate insulin’s price,” tweeted Laura Marston, an intellectual property attorney and a patient advocate for affordable insulin.
8 22
BBB--> IRA; dems getting stuff done thru gop obstruction = only policy eg burn pit tantrum
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-incorrectly-attacks-inflation-reduction-act-claiming-it-will-raise-taxes-individuals
strategic use / weaponization of polarization // filibuster minority rule
kos
no lnx twt
Republicans delay everything in order to destroy Democratic agenda — with an assist from Manchin
Joan McCarter and Daily Kos June 19, 2022
Senate Republicans have been playing a transparent game for months now, using their willing tool of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to drag out negotiations on any number of issues to keep him away from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden. To prevent Democrats from moving any significant policies that can help the American people and give Democrats a win.
They’ve done it on voting rights and election reforms. They’ve done it on climate and energy. It’s just one tactic—and a very successful one—Republicans are using to keep the Democratic majority tied up and unable to accomplish anything.
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Case in point: additional funding for the federal COVID-19 effort. Manchin’s good friend and frequent negotiating partner Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) all but killed it this week when he alleged that the Biden administration lied about the government’s ability to secure additional vaccines, treatments, and supplies. That’s because the White House recently announced it was taking money from other priorities to pay for the most pressing needs.
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“Washington operates on a relationship of trust between the respective parties,” Romney said Thursday,. “I hope that there’s an appreciation that for the administration to say they could not purchase these things, and then after several months, divert some funds and then purchase them is unacceptable, and makes our ability to work together … very much shaken to the core.” The pearls are tightly clutched.
The White House, not surprisingly, has a different interpretation on how discussions have been going. “We’ve tried to meet Republicans on their requests, and they keep moving the goal posts,” one official told the Washington Post. Another, spokesperson Kevin Munoz, went on the record. “Going back to January, we’ve been working with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, on the funding needs for the covid response,” he said in a statement. “We’ve also been crystal clear about the consequences of a lack of funding … including the very real possibility that we would have to reevaluate the planned uses of existing funds.”
There’s one more potential win for the White House—not to mention all the people at risk of catching COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months—Republicans are cynically blocking. It’s nearly as egregious as what they’ve been doing on guns.
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All of that puts this in a “we’ll believe when we sit it” mood. “Senate Democrats are preparing for possible summer action on their still-elusive climate, tax reform and prescription drugs bill, grinding behind the scenes on a new version during high-profile gun safety talks.” Because it’s Manchin, once again, that all this is hinging on and Republicans are on the verge of declaring that partisan Democrats have destroyed any hope of gun safety regulation with their unreasonable demands that guns be kept out of the hands of people who have been convicted of violence.
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That sets up Manchin to declare that the Democrats have been horrible partisans and he just can’t continue to work with them. He’s used far flimsier excuses before, like the fact that the White House included his name in a statement about Build Back Better. That’s what blew up the whole package last December, supposedly. It likely wouldn’t take anything more for Manchin to do it again.
Republicans are counting on that.
make sure all is fucked up going into midterms? prove gubmint does not work by breaking it?
obstruction/ stick it to libs/Biden? strict fr free mkt makers/takers BS?
an 5 22
Republicans just voted against two bills to ease the **baby formula shortage** they have spent weeks falsely trying to pin on President Joe Biden.
In tweets and in floor speeches, Republicans have been attacking President Biden for the nationwide baby formula shortage caused by one manufacturer’s recall and closure of its plant for bacterial infection after two infants died.The shortage has been exacerbated by a trade agreement signed by then-President Donald Trump that makes it extremely difficult and expensive to import formula from other countries, and the fact that 90 percent of baby formula in the U.S. is manufactured by just four companies. Also, hoarding, and price-gouging.
Last week President Biden sat down with manufacturers and retailers to map out a plan to get more formula onto store shelves immediately and directed the Food and Drug Administration to help get the plant reopened. This week he went two steps further: he invoked the Defense Production Act to force manufacturers to produce more formula and produce it ahead of other products and created a program to use federal planes to import baby formula from other countries.
House Democrats last week also opened an investigation into the baby formula shortage.
On Wednesday the House voted on two emergency bills to further ease the shortage.
One example of Republicans falsely attacking President Biden and the left is House GOP Caucus chair **Elise Stefanik**‘s now-infamous tweet accusing Democrats of having “no plan” as she labeled them “pedo grifters.”...
one bill would give FDA $28 million to add staff, work to help get more formula to consumers, and create a long-term strategy, including increased safety inspections so this cannot happen again. The second would dramatically increase supply from foreign sources to consumers using the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Program.
192 House Republicans voted against giving FDA $28 million to help fix the crisis and ensure it does not happen again.
Nine House Republicans voted against making it easier for WIC customers to get access to baby formula.
Many Americans are becoming outraged as the news from last night’s votes is spreading online.
[Here’s the list of 9 members of Congress (all Republicans)who voted NO:
Marjorie Taylor Greene Matt Gaetz Louie Gohmert Lauren Boebert Paul Gosar Thomas Massie Andy Biggs Clay Higgins Chip Roy.]
cdv salon an 3 22
I voted for Joe Biden in 2020. He was the best option available for defeating Donald Trump and buying time to organize a defense of American democracy against the neofascist assault. More than a year into Biden's first term in office, I have no regrets. I'd make that same decision again.
Despite tremendous obstruction from the Republican fascists (and their "centrist" allies embedded within the Democratic Party) — a group of sadists determined to cause maximum harm to the American people as a way of obtaining, keeping and expanding political power — Biden has accomplished a great deal as president.This includes slowing down the coronavirus plague, resuscitating the economy, taking long-overdue steps to fix the country's infrastructure and restoring America's leadership role in the world.
In a moment of great crisis when Vladimir Putin and Russia are waging war on Ukraine, to know that America has a leader who, unlike his predecessor, is intelligent, experienced and patriotic, as well as mentally and emotionally stable, brings no small amount of relief. Moreover, one does not have to ask the obvious questions that circled around Trump like flies around manure on a summer's day: "Is the president of the United States merely a useful idiot and stooge for Russia, or is he actually an agent and saboteur?" That too brings considerable peace of mind.
RELATED: Biden calls out the attack on democracy: But he didn't just mean Vladimir Putin
By all accounts Joe Biden is a humble, honorable and decent man who loves his family, has experienced great challenges and losses in life but has not succumbed to bitterness. That also signals to a type of wisdom demanded by the many crises facing the United States and the world.
To see Joe Biden, who overcame a significant speech impediment as a child, give the State of the Union address while millions of people around the world watched — and to watch him stammer occasionally while doing so — shows him to be a role model of perseverance, humanity, and vulnerability. He has been weathered by life, sometimes badly beaten down, and is still standing.
But there has always been a lingering doubt that gnaws at me as I watch Biden's presidency unfold in a time of plague and political crisis, and in a moment where America's present and future are nebulous and greatly in doubt. Unfortunately, his State of the Union address only served to reinforce my anxiety.
Joe Biden is a career politician who is now the leader of the free world and arguably the most powerful person on the planet. And like all politicians, he is a disappointment. Biden is far too quick to seek "compromise" with the Republican fascists— which mostly means outright capitulation. He represents the interests of big corporations at least as much as those of the American people. He is a professional centrist. He will in all likelihood never cancel student loan debt or make other efforts at great and lasting economic relief. Although driven by circumstance to embrace more progressive policies, Biden was one of the Clinton-era "New Democrats" who helped unleash neoliberalism and gangster capitalism on American society, greatly damaging the middle class he claims to care so much about.
My greatest worry about Biden is simple: America needs a fighting champion if its democracy is to be saved. To this point, as this week's State of the Union address made clear once again, he does not appear to be up to that challenge.
In total, Biden's speech was an attempt to claim credit for his administration's many successes and to soothe an anxious American public that is deeply worried about the war in Ukraine, the economy and the pandemic. On that account, public opinion polls show that the speech was successful.
At the Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein offers this generous summary, arguing that Biden's speech "portrayed him as a resolute champion of financially squeezed families at home and freedom abroad":
Repeatedly through the speech, Biden rejected stark political choices.Vigorous at points, meandering at others, the speech was neither a full-scale course correction, like Bill Clinton's 1996 declaration that "the era of big government is over," nor a stubborn reaffirmation of the strategies Biden employed during his trying first year in office. The president at times gave each faction in his party reasons to cheer, but did not align entirely with either liberals or centrists.
Instead, the address showed Biden and his advisers trying to define a distinctive political space centered on providing kitchen-table assistance to average families, encouraging greater national unity, and reasserting America's role as the leader of the small-d democratic world against challenges from aggressive autocracies symbolized by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The speech was the performance of a president who remains confident in his political compass, even as the steep and persistent decline in his job-approval ratings since last summer has caused many people in both parties to question it. Throughout, Biden underscored his determination to combine positions often considered incompatible…
Biden also, as Brownstein observes, reverted to his habit of seeking to placate Republicans and to distance himself from Democratic progressives:
Toward Republicans, Biden was alternately conciliatory (proposing "a unity agenda" and praising their involvement in the bipartisan infrastructure bill) and confrontational (denouncing Donald Trump's tax cuts and the surge of red-state laws rolling back civil rights and liberties). He pointedly renounced one of the most polarizing battle cries of his own party's liberal vanguard, calling to "fund the police" rather than "defund the police," while reasserting his commitment to criminal-justice reform and gun control, both enduring priorities for the left.
What was most notably absent from Biden's speech was any forceful and sustained discussion of the country's democracy crisis, the role of the Republicans in creating and amplifying it, and the fact that we now face a moment where the voting rights and civil rights — indeed, the fundamental human rights — of Black and brown people (along with members of other marginalized groups) are under existential threat from a new Jim Crow system.
Black Americans are among the Democratic Party's most important constituencies, and its most loyal voters. Without the support of Black people in both the Democratic primaries and the general election, and especially the support of Black women, Joe Biden would not be president today.
During Biden's victory speech in November 2020, he said: "Especially at those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African American community stood up again for me. You've always had my back, and I'll have yours." Those are fine words, but in terms of protecting Black America's voting rights and civil rights, Biden and his administration have not lived up to them.
RELATED: Media messes up coverage of voting rights, blames Biden for GOP's racism
His State of the Union speech was one more example of that failure. In several key moments, Biden signaled that he is temperamentally unable to do what is necessary to stop the Republican fascists' attempt(s) to end multiracial democracy.
Biden repeatedly spoke of the need to "unify" Democrats and Republicans. That means seeking "unity" with those who actively tried to nullify the 2020 election and supported a violent coup to prevent him from becoming president. Moreover, the Republican fascists have in no way ended their campaign to end American democracy and terminate Biden's presidency.
Biden often speaks boldly about American democracy being in crisis, and draws eloquently upon the images and legacy of the civil rights movement and Black Freedom Struggle while doing so. But he does not act with the "urgency of now" in seeking to defend that democracy.
The reasons for Biden's behavior are not mysterious. He is the product of an American political regime that is dying, but whose leaders and principal figures have, for the most part, not realized that fact. Biden genuinely believes that as a leading member of the American political caste he can somehow save the country's obsolescent political order. He is a Washington insider, an older white man and a "moderate". Once upon a time that might have meant that Republican leaders would work with him in good faith to find solutions to the country's many problems.
But in believing that is still true, Biden has committed a grievous error: Today's Republican Party and "conservative" movement comprise a revolutionary force, which seeks to destroy American democracy and replace it with fascism or some other form of authoritarianism.
When Biden speaks of "unity" or "compromise" with the Republicans he is giving aid and comfort to the neofascist movement --if not surrendering to it altogether. In a recent essay for the New York Times, Charles Blow echoes these concerns as embodied by Joe Biden's description of Mitch McConnell as his friend:
So, how can Biden maintain that McConnell is an honest, honorable friend?
It seems that Biden suffers from the same blind spot as other white liberal leaders throughout history: looking past the oppressive impulses of other white men to see kinship and commonality. Where the oppressed see an existential threat, men like Biden only seem to see a disagreement among decent men on a political issue. They see them as simply on the "other side" rather than "other than."…
But this version of politics is an extension of the Looney Tunes cartoon of Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, where they are enemies on the clock but are friends off the clock, and is offensive to the people whose very lives are at stake. And yet Biden continues to proclaim his affections for those supporting oppression.
These bonds across bigotry smack of the insecurity of allies. They smack of a privilege of which only white men can boast, because the threat is almost always aimed away for them and at others.
When it comes to the issue of power and politics, the Bidens and McConnells of the world maintain their own affinity group.
In an essay for the Guardian, Thomas Zimmer expands on this:
Over the past few weeks, President Joe Biden has repeatedly emphasized his friendship with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. At the National Prayer Breakfast in early February, for instance, he praised McConnell as "a man of your word. And you're a man of honor. Thank you for being my friend."
Biden's publicly professed affinity is weirdly at odds with the political situation. Going back to the Obama era, McConnell has led the Republican Party in a strategy of near-total obstruction which he has pursued with ruthless cynicism. It is true that he has, at times, signaled distance to Donald Trump and condemned the January 6 insurrection. But McConnell is also sabotaging any effort to counter the Republican party's ongoing authoritarian assault on the political system.
The distinct asymmetry in the way the two sides treat each other extends well beyond Biden and McConnell.…
Republicans could not be clearer about the fact that they consider Democratic governance fundamentally illegitimate, yet some establishment Democrats act as if politics as usual is still an option and a return to "normalcy" imminent.
"I actually like Mitch McConnell," Biden said during a press conference a few weeks ago, providing a window into what he sees in Republicans: No matter what they do, underneath they're good guys, they'll snap out of it. Promise. It's the manifestation of a specific worldview that makes it nearly impossible to acknowledge the depths of Republican radicalization — a perspective that severely hampers the fight for the survival of American democracy….
Some weeks ago, a prominent Black comedian asked on Twitter if Joe Biden thought that, because he's a white man, it meant Republicans would work with him in ways they refused to with Barack Obama? The answer to that question appears to be yes.
RELATED: Mitch McConnell's moment of truth: For many whites, Black people aren't real "Americans"
Whiteness is almost never a liability in American society. But when it comes to the Republican fascists, Joe Biden's skin color may not be helping him much. The Republicans, their followers and their media sycophants view Biden as the white leader of a predominantly Black and brown political party. (That is of course false, but the truth is irrelevant to the Republican fascists and larger white right.) In their eyes, Biden is a "race traitor," even if they do not use that exact term. For the Republican fascists and larger white right, no compromise is possible: Their almost-explicit goal is to create a 21st-century Herrenvolk society in which Black and brown people, to quote the infamous words of Chief Justice Roger Taney, have no rights the white man is bound to respect.
Biden and too many other white liberals and moderates continue to believe that compromise with the Republicans is still possible, and that finding "common ground" can redeem this moment of democratic crisis. That kind of white racial innocence may well be America's undoing.
aha: story 1 vs 2 gop must prove that we do not need gov't b/c it does not work b/c they make sure it does not; then ramp up disaster cap'l/ pvtization to make $ on chaos, buy up common cheap
trump algorithm: oppose whatever BO wanted
john s salon an 1/22
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who recently bowed out of a much-anticipated U.S. Senate bid, revealed that he was "bothered" after conversations with dozens of Republican Senators, who apparently wanted him to be a "roadblock" until the GOP retakes the White House.Sununu told The Washington Examiner this month that he was initially "pretty close" to running, explaining: "I wasn't ready to make an announcement, but I was like, 'OK, this makes sense. I think I could be a voice nationally.'" But after chatting with "most" of the GOP Senate caucus, Sununu reportedly soured on the role once it became apparent that they wanted him to be a legislative mule.
"They were all, for the most part, content with the speed at which they weren't doing anything. It was very clear that we just have to hold the line for two years," he told the Examiner. "OK, so I'm just going to be a roadblock for two years. That's not what I do."
"It bothered me that they were OK with that," the governor added.
Sununu's comments come in the wake of an intense legislative standoff between Democrats and Republicans over voting rights, an issue which became the focus of President Biden's agenda after negotiations on the "Build Back Better Act" – the president's $2.2 trillion social safety net plan – fell apart.
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans successfully filibustered Biden's sweeping voting rights overhaul – known as the "Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act" – which would standardize voting laws across all 50 states and clamp down on voter suppression. Not a single Republican backed the measure, even though the bill is supported by nearly 70% of Americans, according to a Navigator poll from November.
With Republicans having dashed Biden's hopes of passing the party's two signature pieces of legislation – the "Build Back Better Act" and the "Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act" – Democrats now question whether their colleagues believe in anything other than mindless obstructionism.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Biden echoed the spirit of Sununu's remarks, asking reporters, "What are Republicans for? What are they for? Name me one thing they're for."
That same day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sidestepped questioning when asked to lay out GOP's official agenda. "That's a very good question," McConnell said. "And I'll let you know when we take it back."
According to a recent Axios report, the Kentucky Republican has privately told colleagues and donors that the Republicans have no legislative agenda and are more interested in picking apart Democrats'.
Meanwhile, the House GOP caucus appears to be adopting the opposite strategy, according to The Washington Post, with its leadership drumming up a "list of policy pledges" designed to buoy support for the party in 2022.
Among those helming this effort are House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., both of whom ardently supported Donald Trump's election fraud conspiracy and voted to overturn the 2020 election.
Playing an advisory role to McCarthy is former Republican House SpeakerNewt Gingrich, who crafted the "Contract with America," a legislative platform widely linked to the GOP's successful campaign to flip both chambers in 1994.
Gingrich told the Post that McCarthy doesn't believe an anti-Biden agenda is sufficient for 2022, saying, "We need a positive message."
"I think that's clearly what McCarthy wants to do and I've offered to look at stuff and offer advice," Gingrich added. "There's lots of people in the House working on it. It will be a widespread commitment."
While the exact details of McCarthy's agenda remain hazy, the broad contours of the plan are clear.
So-called "parental rights" are expected to be front and center as Republican state officials continue to decry the alleged instruction of "critical race theory" – whose prevalence appears to be vastly overstated. For remedy, McCarthy has already released an informal "Parents Bill of Rights," which includes such provisions as the "right to be heard" and the "right to know what's being taught in schools and see reading material."
The House Speaker is also expected to assemble seven "issue-specific task forces" that will tackle a variety of other policy objectives, such as countering China's economic prowess, combating the recent crime wave, securing the nation's borders, regulating Big Tech,cutting corporate taxes, bulldozing environmental regulations, and curtailing inflation.
The soaring cost of consumer goods has proven an evergreen source of whataboutism for Republicans, even as the year-end jobs numbers indicate that Biden has steered the economy through an unprecedented economic recovery since he took office. Fox News called inflation a "top weapon" for the GOP to wield against Democrats in the upcoming midterms.
Throughout 2021, the consumer prices index rose 6.8% – the highest increase it has seen since 1982.
But when it comes to actually tackling inflation, lawmakers have historically had to walk a tightrope, said Brian Riedl, who served as an aide to Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
"There is nothing that messages well, significantly reduces inflation and is painless," Riedl told the Post. "It's easier to criticize inflation than to map out an actual solution going forward, and that's the box Republicans are currently in."
must prevent a win for biden/ agenda/ communism:
this is bi-part: Some of the Republican Party's top donors are not pleased with the number of Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, backing President Joe Biden's infrastructure package.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who chairs the donor-funded National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Senate colleagues of donors' reactions to the vote during a closed door Senate luncheon on Tuesday, two sources told Axios.
According to Scott, the organization's donors are not pleased with the 19 Senate Republicans and 13 House Republicans who voted to pass the legislation.
Axios reports that given the scrutiny McConnell faced for supporting Biden's agenda, donors believe its essentially a form of political suicide to advance the opposing side's agenda.
READ: Evangelical warns Christians have 'erected a graven image' of Trump and let it corrupt the faith]
Scott, according to Axios, said "some donors had also been paying attention to Trump's statements, one of the sources said, which have included the former president calling the Republicans 'RINOs' who 'should be ashamed of themselves.'"
As a second source noted, most of the Republicans who attended the luncheon actually voted in favor of the infrastructure package. In fact, some even helped author the bill.
On Monday, just one day before the luncheon, eight of the Republican lawmakers— including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), as well as Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) — attended the White House signing ceremony.
https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/gop-mitch-mcconnell/
corp tax hike?!
salon
After being closely aligned for decades, it appears that Republicans and top business lobbying groups are having a very public falling-out over conservative lawmakers' lack of support for a bipartisan infrastructure deal currently languishing in Congress.
According to digital politics site The Hill, every major business group in Washington, D.C. — including Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, among others — has expressed some measure of support for the bill, which was crafted by a group of lawmakers in both parties alongside the White House.
Business groups have long been a key constituency for Republicans, who worked closely with K Street lobbyists to craft a 2017 tax cut that offered hefty benefits to both corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Yet no more than a small handful of Republican members of Congress have agreed to vote for the legislation favored by these groups this time around.
In a conference call with reporters last month Michael Johnson, CEO of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, a longtime conservative-leaning lobby that stands to gain heavily if the bill passes, seemed flabbergasted by Republicans' refusal to vote for such a popular piece of popular piece of legislation, which polls well across most demographics, including conservatives.
"That's why it boggles the mind that the progressives in the House have decided to take a very popular hostage and Republican leadership has decided to not rescue that very popular hostage when they easily could," Johnson said.
So what's behind this right-wing change-of-heart?
Neil Bradley, the executive VP and chief policy officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, blamed "misinformation" surrounding the bill during an interview with CQ Roll Call last month — adding that some House GOP members have privately told him that they'd like to vote for the infrastructure deal but feared angering Trump and the new constellation of ultra-conservative groups that were empowered during his tenure.
"I think there are some unfortunate things going on, and I'm being generous with the term unfortunate," Bradley said.
"If this vote today was occurring on the merits of the bill, the outcome wouldn't be in doubt and we'd have a supermajority," he added. "It's not the substance that people are disagreeing with here."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in particular has become a flashpoint of conservative ire after endorsing a small number of Democratic candidates in Congressional races last year. The group, along with a number of other influential pro-business organizations, also stopped PAC donations to hundreds of Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 election results on the evening of Jan. 6.
Following that news, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has taken to saying the U.S. Chamber "sold out" and that he no longer considers it an ally.
"I didn't even know the Chamber was around anymore," McCarthy told the political newsletter Punchbowl News.
The feud reached a head this week when Republican leaders kicked representatives for the U.S. Chamber off its conference calls.
Brett Horton, the chief of staff for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., didn't hold back when asked about Republicans shunning the pro-business group.
"People care what their local Chambers of Commerce and business owners have to say, not the U.S. Chamber," Horton told The Hill. "If the U.S. Chamber sent me a meeting request right now, I wouldn't even staff that meeting out to an intern, and I don't see that changing."
In response to being iced out of the Republican inner circle, Axios reported this week, the group abruptly reversed its support for the bill. The Chamber disputed the report by arguing that it still supports the bill "as a stand-alone bill unlinked to the proposed tax and spend reconciliation bill" that it has been linked to from its inception — which makes its support for the infrastructure package merely theoretical.
In addition to the Republicans' beef with business groups over the pending infrastructure legislation, the two sides also clashed over their differing opinions on raising the U.S. debt ceiling this past week. Business groups saw the writing on the wall if Congress decided to default on the country's sizeable debts, and feared catastrophic consequences if the limit was not raised.
But most Republican lawmakers, especially Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, instead concluded that their responsibilities to their constitutents lay in obstructing the Democratic agenda — no matter what.
"Democrats have the full ability to raise the debt ceiling as a part of reconciliation," Cruz told POLITICO on Thursday. "They want political cover."
After a last-minute deal brokered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the debt ceiling was ultimately raised Thursday night — though only for a few months. McConnell said Saturday that he does not intend to make another deal come December, when the deal will likely expire — regardless of what business groups say.
McConnell's justification for the obstruction appeared to be rooted in a statement Sen. Chuck Schumer made after the Thursday vote, blasting Republican efforts to stymie any change to the debt ceiling.
"I am writing to make it clear that in light of Senator Schumer's hysterics and my grave concerns about the ways that another vast, reckless, partisan spending bill would hurt Americans and help China, I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement," McConnell said in a statement.
"Unprecedented': Ted Cruz accused of 'undermining' America's national security
October 03, 2021
According to a report from the New York Times, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is taking withering fire for delaying dozens of appointments to the State Department and leaving multiple ambassadorship appointees in...
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https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/14/epa-jackson-watchdog-070993
An escalating fight between the Environmental Protection Agency's top political aide and its internal watchdog has forced a behind-the-scenes Washington operator into the spotlight.
Ryan Jackson, a native Oklahoman who worked for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) for more than a decade and a half, has maintained a relatively low profile since becoming EPA's chief of staff in the early days of the Trump administration. He weathered the headline-grabbing scandals that brought down former Administrator Scott Pruitt and helped transition Pruitt's replacement, Andrew Wheeler, into the job.
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Now Jackson finds himself facing off with EPA's acting inspector general, who took the rare step last week of publicly accusing Jackson of stonewalling investigations into allegations made against him.
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Jackson has not yet agreed to an interview with the inspector general's office, which is investigating numerous allegations against the chief of staff, including that he attempted to pressure an independent scientist to change her testimony to Congress and that he oversaw destruction of documents related to probes of Pruitt's travel and other matters.
EPA has defended Jackson and accused the inspector general's office of overstepping its authority. The agency declined to make Jackson available for an interview.
The episode represents the latest run-in between the Trump administration's political appointees and the inspectors general who are meant to serve as a check on waste, fraud and abuse. And it shows that the EPA is still dealing with the aftereffects of Pruitt's tenure, nearly 18 months after he stepped down amid a series of investigations into his dealings with lobbyists and his personal use of agency resources.
It also illustrates that Jackson doesn’t necessarily care about being seen as playing nice with the IG's office, said one former top EPA official who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
"He doesn’t worry about getting himself in the middle of a fight like this,” the former official said. “Other chiefs of staff would be mortified, terrified of this happening around and about them. He’s not as worried about that as other people."
But Jackson's alleged behavior has come as a surprise even to some Democrats who respected him when he worked for Inhofe.
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Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), whose staff worked closely with Jackson and other Inhofe staff on the 2016 overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act, said his staff “really enjoyed working” with Jackson but added it’s “very important” he cooperate in the IG investigation.
“The staff in that whole TSCA thing just worked really well together and he was one of the key players in that,” Udall told POLITICO. “I’m surprised that he’s not cooperating. He always seemed like a pretty straightforward guy.”
Jackson and Wheeler are among the approximately half a dozen former Inhofe aides — known loosely by some in Washington as the "Inhofe mafia" — that came to EPA during the Trump administration.
But as the inspector general’s inquiries into Pruitt piled up — first class flights, 24/7 bodyguards, big raises for his aides and allegations that Pruitt used his position to seek work for his wife — the tug of war between Jackson and EPA’s political leaders only intensified.
A former official in the inspector general's office, who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters, told POLITICO that Jackson "views the political agenda as the primary guide" to running the agency, rather than "the law."
“It was an ongoing issue with Jackson about whether he would deign to cooperate with the IG,” the former official said.
Jackson would get involved with any request regarding Pruitt made by the inspector general's office to low-level bureaucrats who routinely handle such information sharing. "Jackson would interpose himself and tell those units, ‘Don’t give it to them.’ So we would have to fight that fight," the former official said.
In one known example of that from fall 2017, Jackson delayed EPA’s finance office from handing over documents as part of an OIG audit into Pruitt’s travel back and forth to Oklahoma, as POLITICO reported last year. The matter was ultimately settled, but not before career officials had to set off alarm bells that Jackson and other political appointees were “close to impeding the audit.”
Tension between political appointees and agency watchdogs predates the Trump administration. For example, Obama administration officials spent years fighting with the inspector general about access to documents from EPA’s small homeland security office.
The latest flap with Jackson reached a new pinnacle last week, when acting Inspector General Charles Sheehan took the virtually unprecedented step of sending Wheeler a "seven-day letter" detailing Jackson's refusal to cooperate with investigators. Federal law requires agency leaders to share such complaints with Congress, but sending a such a letter has been compared to the "nuclear" option of federal oversight.
In response, Jackson and EPA’s other political leaders adopted some of the lessons from the president’s own oftentimes successful playbook — in particular, pushing back aggressively and making no apologies.
Wheeler was legally required to inform Congress of the OIG’s complaint against Jackson, but EPA went much further in defending Jackson's behavior. Wheeler issued his own criticisms of the OIG’s treatment of Jackson. EPA’s top attorney issued a memo questioning the legitimacy of the OIG probe and investigators’ authority.
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Jackson always made himself available to the OIG in the many audits and investigations the watchdog carries out, said Mandy Gunasekara, a former political official in EPA's air office who left EPA earlier this year to launch a pro-Trump advocacy group.
But he can't dedicate too much time to dealing with the OIG, she said. "You have to pick and choose at some point throughout the day to make sure you don’t get caught up working on things that don’t divert away from achieving larger priorities and larger goals."
Inhofe, who employed Jackson as one of his senior-most aides for nearly two decades, called Jackson “very reliable” and somebody who had “never done anything in terms of lying or bad behavior,” but added it would be “characteristic” for him to not speak with the inspector general if he didn’t know what information they’re seeking.
“If [the inspector general’s] not going to tell him — there’s some big secret and he won’t say why he wants to talk to him — he doesn’t have to talk to him,” Inhofe said in an interview. “I’d immediately be suspicious if he said I want to talk to you but I’m not going to say what I want to talk to you about.”
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said his staff did not want to be a mediator of the dispute but encouraged the inspector general’s office to ask questions “with enough specificity that whoever is being questioned knows what’s being asked and can be responsive” to those inquiries.
Those that have worked with Jackson previously said his lack of cooperation with the probe struck them as out of character.
“It’s certainly not how he operated on the Hill and I don’t imagine it’s how he would have operated in any other professional setting,” said a Senate Democratic aide who had previously worked with Jackson. “He finds workarounds to rules. He’s not somebody who just breaks rules.”
Jackson’s ties to Inhofe date back to 1994 when he took his first job in politics for the Oklahoma Republican’s successful bid for the U.S. Senate. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma in 1998 and law school in 2001, Jackson spent all but a couple of the following 16 years working in various senior roles for Inhofe.
Jackson has described his approach to governmental service as one rooted in avoiding drama.
“The vast majority of people I have had the opportunity to work with are not there to play gotcha or contribute to drama,” he told POLITICO in December 2018. “It takes patience and sometimes quite a bit of patience, but it is still true that despite some amount of drama which happens throughout the day there is more time where a lot of people still simply want to contribute based on what they believe is the right thing to do.”
During his time as Inhofe’s chief of staff, Jackson won bipartisan praise for his efforts to complete work on major transportation and water resources legislation, as well as a landmark chemical safety overhaul.
At the same time, he was present for Inhofe’s most notorious stunts questioning the scientific consensus on climate change: the Oklahoma Republican’s snowball on the Senate floor, pressing the so-called Climategate scandal and publication of Inhofe’s 2012 book on climate change, titled “The Greatest Hoax.”
Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.
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https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/07/epa-ryan-jackson-documents-investigation-067566
the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general is investigating whether chief of staff Ryan Jackson was involved in destroying internal documents that should have been retained, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The IG's office is asking witnesses whether Jackson has routinely destroyed politically sensitive documents, including schedules and letters from people like lobbyist Richard Smotkin, who helped arrange a trip for then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to Morocco when he was in office, according to one of the sources, a former administration official who told investigators he has seen Jackson do that firsthand.
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The previously unreported allegations add to the controversy around Jackson, a former aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) who has been at EPA since the early days of the Trump administration.EPA's internal watchdog accused Jackson earlier this week of refusing to cooperate with other ongoing investigations.
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Jackson was put on notice that the document destruction was improper, something the former official said he discussed earlier this year with an official from the IG’s office.
“They would scold us on a daily basis and Ryan would say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know, we’ll do better next time,’" the former official said.
Jackson told POLITICO he was “unaware” of the IG investigating him for destroying documents. He didn't respond to a further request for comment.
Michael Abboud, an EPA spokesperson, disputed the allegations, noting that a previous investigation had not found evidence of illegal document destruction at the agency.
“Even the National Archives have publicly stated these claims are ‘unsubstantiated,'" Abboud said in a statement. "Politico choosing to run this story on the baseless claims of one disgruntled former employee does not make it true. EPA takes record retention seriously and trains all employees (career and political) on proper protocols and will continue to follow them.”
The interest in whether Jackson destroyed records may indicate renewed interest in allegations that Pruitt kept a "secret calendar" to hide controversial meetings with Republican donors or industry officials. In July 2018, CNN reported that Pruitt aides would regularly "scrub" his calendar, but a subsequent investigation by the National Archives and Records Administration ended in January and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
However, since NARA concluded its investigation, EPA's inspector general has been investigating the allegations. A second source familiar with the matter told POLITICO that investigators with EPA's inspector general questioned a witness roughly six months ago about Jackson's alleged role in destroying documents.
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EPA's Inspector General's Office has launched numerous probes into Pruitt and Jackson, but it is not clear which of those inquiries involves alleged document destruction.
Jackson is also facing allegations of stonewalling the internal watchdog.
This week, acting Inspector General Charles Sheehan accused Jackson of defying investigators by refusing to fully cooperate with two probes. One instance detailed by Sheehan involves an attempt to find out how and where Jackson obtained the testimony of Deborah Swackhamer, the former chairman of EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors. She had alleged that she felt “bullied” by Jackson's attempt to get her to stick to pro-Trump administration talking points at a congressional hearing.
A spokesperson for the IG declined to comment on the subject of ongoing investigations.
As POLITICO was reporting this story, a number of people close to Jackson reached out unprompted to say they had never seen him destroy documents, but would only speak on condition of anonymity.
"Having worked with Ryan on a near daily basis, I never witnessed or heard of any of these allegations and it would be uncharacteristic of him to do," said a Trump administration official.
A former senior EPA official also said: “Ryan Jackson has spent his entire career in public service, managing hundreds of staff over more than two decades. To suggest that Ryan Jackson is anything other than a professional and esteemed public servant who is committed to his staff and the Agency’s mission is pure slander."
"There’s nobody who’s more meticulous in his record keeping and in his notes and in his checklists," another senior EPA official said. "Everybody on day 1 had records training and to the extent that somebody deviated from that, that’s on them for themselves because they all signed that paperwork and they all had to certify that training.
Officials who are found guilty of “willfully and unlawfully” violating the Federal Records Act and unlawfully destroying federal documents can be fined and face a jail sentence of up to three years. The IG can’t prosecute any criminal violations of the law but can refer matters to the Justice Department. Jackson has not been accused of breaking any laws.
"If you destroy documents with the intent of deceiving the public, it can be a violation of the Federal Records Act," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission. "If you decide these documents may be embarrassing and you don't want the public to see them and therefore you destroy them, you could be violating the Federal Records Act."
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Sheehan sent a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler calling stonewalling of investigations a “serious or flagrant problem.” Jackson said he has regular interaction with the IG and his staff.
Swackhamer, a retired environmental chemist at the University of Minnesota, said two years ago that she felt pressured by Jackson to downplay Pruitt’s decision not to reappoint many members of Board of Scientific Counselors when she was appearing before the House Science Committee. Pruitt later removed her as chair of the board, which provides advice to the EPA on its research and development work.
Jackson defended his decision to reach out to Swackhamer before she testified, saying in a letter to Wheeler this week that he wanted to ensure she was "fully informed" about the status of board appointments.
Alex Guillén contributed to this report
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no lnx
Sparks fly at Steve Mnuchin hearing: ‘The only thing you suffer is smug rhetoric and staggering lies’
Written by David Edwards / Raw Story March 3, 2020
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin expressed outrage during a Tuesday hearing after he was accused of breaking the law and “staggering lies.”
The confrontation occurred in the House Ways and Means Committee when Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) confronted Mnuchin on his refusal to turn over the president’s taxes to Congress.
“This isn’t going to be pretty,” Pascrell noted as he questioned the secretary. “It is impossible to be polite to corruption and people who break the law. So by refusing to turn over Donald Trump’s business and personal tax returns to this committee, I think you’re breaking the law.”
“The only thing you suffer is smug rhetoric and staggering lies,” he added.
Mnuchin immediate took exception to the congressman’s remarks.
“Let me just comment,” Mnuchin said.
“I asked a question,” Pascrell shot back.
“I’m commenting because I find it offensive that you’re telling me that I’m breaking the law and staggering lies,” Mnuchin complained.
“I asked you tell me why you’re not breaking the law,” the New Jersey Democrat pressed.
“Just to be clear,” Mnuchin replied. “There’s a third branch of government and there are courts that interpret things. This is in the courts and the courts will deal with it. So, that’s your interpretation of that law. I’m relying upon legal counsel on what is our interpretation of the law.”
“So in all due respect,” he remarked. “I’m not breaking the law. You have a different interpretation. You’re not a judge.”
“Neither are you,” Pascrell noted.
Watch the video below from The House Ways and Means Committee
https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/sparks-fly-at-steve-mnuchin-hearing-the-only-thing-you-suffer-is-smug-rhetoric-and-staggering-lies/
320 an
https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/under-a-democratic-president-mcconnell-vows-a-return-to-total-obstruction/
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