So... this one is another Uniparty stooge? That about the size of it?

I'm intentionally addressing in reverse order.

quote:

Originally posted by mod29:
Where are their priorities?

A politicians priorities are:
1. Getting elected
2. Getting re-elected
Distant 3rd. What their constituents want.

Constituents get confused when their politician talks about an issue, and mistake it for the politician genuinely wanting to solve the issue. Most of the time, the politician is merely trying to get re-elected and is talking in sound bites for the news cycle and potential campaign clips. Actually solving problems would take time away from the DC cocktail circuit and graft.

Sure they sprinkle in a few easy wins that don't take too much time so they can point to an accomplishment or two during their re-election campaign. They sure seem to go after the easy wins right before a Congressional break so they can stay in DC longer and reduce the amount of time spent back home.

quote:

Originally posted by mod29:
Republicans may well have control of congress, but I can't tell much difference from when the Left is in control.

They don't want to be in charge. They want voters to think they want to be in charge. Being in charge takes time away from the DC cocktail circuit and graft.

quote:

Originally posted by mod29:
Why are they passing budgets, funding wars in other countries or even considering it when our borders are over-run with illegals?

If they had any balls whatsoever, they would leverage funding to get what they wanted in regard to border security and the deportation of illegals.

Here is a pearl of wisdom I learned many years ago from Sigforum. The first rule of politics is the item being discussed (e.g. illegal immigration), is rarely actually the item being discussed. In actuality they're talking about power. For a Congressional Critter, power comes from being re-elected and getting better and better committee assignments which gets them invited to better cocktail parties and access to higher levels of graft.

Take illegal immigrants as an example. Some politicians see illegals as undocumented voters (reference above for politicians priorities) and just yesterday the story broke on the written pamphlets being distributed to illegals telling them how to register to vote and vote for Biden. Other politicians see illegals as something they can publicly come out against and make great sound bites for the news and campaign videos so they can get re-elected.

All of the above is pretty pessimistic, but what percentage of the 535 Congressional Critters are true believers honestly trying to make change after 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years? I'd wager the percentage is low single digits.

McCarthy would have been better than this guy. I had a little hope that we were finally going to get some things accomplished, but it appers that Johnson is a spineless, compromised, coward. Well, back to business as usual in the swamp.

Tatertodd

I agree with the priorities - except for #3

it should be:

#3 - what do the campaign contributors want
#4 - what do the lobbyists and special interest groups want
.
.
.
.
.
#9000 - what do my constituents want

Bongino brought up something recently of interest here. Assuming there is an electoral tie (269/269), which is not outside the realm of possibility, the House decides who will win. This makes it all the more important to keep control there, at least until that process is over. None of us care for Johnson, as he was most certainly brought into the uniparty fold by Paul Ryan, but I think we need to just swallow hard for the time being and suck it up.

There is zero chance that a hard right true conservative will be made Speaker. Zero. We are not going to get what we want here, so I think it is more important to prevent what we REALLY don't want.

Should there be an election, should Trump be elected, and should we increase our numbers in the House, then we can worry about the Speakership. Until then, let's keep hanging on by our fingernails rather than letting go completely.

^^^You're NOT wrong...Sage assessment right there! We've go too much to lose!

Seems that Fox News contributor Liz Peek agrees we need to come together, to control the House and elect the President, if the D's get control, and Trump is voted in, they will stop at nothing to keep him out of the Oval Office.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot. She is trying to wreck the GOP

It’s high time someone in the Republican Party told Marjorie Taylor Greene to turn all that bombastic self-serving showmanship and drama queen energy on Democrats, and stop trying to defeat her own party.

The Georgia Republican, who famously displayed sexually explicit photos of Hunter Biden during a committee hearing and called fellow representative Lauren Boebert a bitch on the House floor, is known for wild antics and equally harebrained conspiracy theories.

Currently, she is threatening to oust Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. The Louisiana Representative, with a five-vote majority in the House, is attempting to keep his caucus intact as he navigates treacherous issues including funding Ukraine, which has become unpopular with some conservatives, and reauthorizing the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He also struggled to pass a funding bill, which required relying on Democrats to get another big spending package over the threshold.

To be sure, not all Republicans approve of spending billions more to arm Ukraine, especially since our own border remains wide open; many in the GOP wanted Johnson to demand border enforcement in exchange for support of Kyiv. Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world (which is perhaps why Hunter Biden was so richly employed there) and it not clear that America’s billions sent to fight Vladimir Putin have all been spent towards that end. There is almost certainly inadequate oversight, as I wrote early in the war.

We need steady leadership. We need steady hands at the
Nonetheless, countering Russia’s power-mad dictator is the right thing to do. Putin’s ambitions will not stop at Ukraine. The next target might well be a NATO ally, which would put U.S. boots on the ground.

Though the war has taken a terrible toll on the valiant people of Ukraine, it has revealed Russia to be vulnerable. If President Biden had allowed an all-out aggressive war against Moscow, we would not be at a seeming stalemate. Because he dithered, Ukraine is now losing ground and urgently needs weapons and ammunition. This can be remedied; we need to provide the funding and push the White House to outline the path to victory.

As to the FISA, Republicans are wary of allowing warrantless surveillance and rightly so. The law has been abused in the past, and is most hated today for having enabled surveillance of Trump campaign by Hillary Clinton’s apparatchiks. Nonetheless, it was not that long ago that the United States came under attack by Islamic terrorists; given the millions who have entered the country illegally since Biden became president, hundreds of whom are on the terror watch list, it is imperative that we up our vigilance against terrorism, not dumb it down.

Mike Johnson opposed the FISA renewal in the past; asked why he changed his mind, he said that having received a classified briefing on the issue, he had changed his mind. I believe him.

Greene, who was elected by a total of 170,162 voters in 2022 in a district that the Cook report rates R+22, doesn’t like any of it and would rather burn down the House, metaphorically speaking, than work towards the greater good. The greater good, unless she and her fellow discontents in Congress have forgotten, is defeating Joe Biden in November.

Our country is facing enormous challenges, many the result of the wrong-headed and dangerous polices of the Biden White House.

If Biden wins four more years in the Oval Office, we will be forced to travel even further down the road towards erratic and unreliable green energy while our bounteous and inexpensive domestic oil and gas resources go to waste.

If Democrats win control of Congress, which Ms. Greene may well facilitate, they will likely push through tax increases that will undermine investment and productivity, thereby depressing wage increases, and open the door to even more wasteful spending. We will see a further erosion of law enforcement, and conceivably millions more people entering the country illegally. Our education system will continue to deteriorate and an entire new generation of inner-city boys and girls will emerge from that system unable to move up our ladder of opportunity.

Democrats will push to empower unions, trampling the rights of those who choose not to join, and may attempt to pack the Supreme Court in order to ramrod through measures like widespread student loan forgiveness and "clean" energy mandates which the court in its wisdom has prevented.

In short, there is much at stake.

Last October, other GOP malcontents ejected Kevin McCarthy from the Speakership of the House. It was not a smart or productive move; several House Republicans have since resigned, disgusted by the rancor and self-aggrandizement of those who threw the chamber into convulsions. As a result, what had been a slim majority is now on life support, making governing that much more difficult.

The ouster of the popular McCarthy also torched the public’s view of the GOP. In May 2023, registered voters were evenly split between approving and disapproving of the Republican Party. Today, there is a 25-point gap, with 61% disapproval and 36% approving. That will not help win elections.

The internal squabbles of the party need to stop. If Marjorie Taylor Greene and others want to oppose aid to Ukraine or the FISA bill, they can vote against it. That’s how democracy works.

The future of the U.S. is on the line. Former President Donald Trump, who very much wants to kick Joe Biden out of office, knows how dangerous the tumult in the House can be. He recently met with Mike Johnson in Florida and gave him an important and well-deserved vote of confidence. "I stand with the speaker," Trump declared; he also said he thinks Johnson is "doing a very good job – he's doing about as good as you're going to do."

My message for MTG? Borrowing from Hillary Clinton: Get over yourself. The mission today is to elect Donald Trump.

Link

Biden ‘Strongly’ Supports Johnson’s $95 Billion Foreign Aid Package

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...foreign-aid-package/

President Joe Biden announced he “strongly” supports the House foreign aid package as Republicans rapidly turn on Speaker Mike Johnson over efforts to combine several supplemental bills into a single rule with a lack of border security legislation in the package.

Shortly after the texts of the bills–a 49-page Ukraine supplemental, a 25-page Israel supplemental, and a 15-page “Indo-Pacific” supplemental–were released, Biden urged the passing of the “package,” according to a statement shared to X by Politico’s Daniella Diaz. A document from House Republicans on the appropriations committee notes that $26.38 billion would go to Israel, $60.84 billion would go to Ukraine, and $8.12 billion would head to the Indo-Pacific in the three bills.

“I strongly support this package to get critical support to Israel and Ukraine, provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, and bolster security and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” Biden’s statement read.

“The House must pass the package this week and the Senate should quickly follow. I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed,” it added.

Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk said Biden’s endorsement of the plan is evidence Republicans are “getting screwed on the foreign aid bills.”



Biden’s endorsement of the “package” comes as Johnson’s aim at bundling the bills under one rule – which, if passed, would allow votes on all three bills but deny votes on all if it fails – has caused growing dissatisfaction among his conference.

More at link

quote:

President Joe Biden announced he “strongly” supports the House foreign aid package as Republicans rapidly turn on Speaker Mike Johnson over efforts to combine several supplemental bills into a single rule with a lack of border security legislation in the package.

I had high hopes for Mike Johnson when he was elected as House Speaker.
Now I realize, he's just like McCarthy.
Uniparty.

MGT and Gaetz are the last true Republicans we have and they are holding all of the RINO trash accountable. Johnson is a traitor and I look forward to him being ousted.

So do I. But AFTER the election.

When a commie comes out "strongly" supporting a guy on our side, we are screwed.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

President Joe Biden announced he “strongly” supports the House foreign aid package as Republicans rapidly turn on Speaker Mike Johnson over efforts to combine several supplemental bills into a single rule with a lack of border security legislation in the package.

I had high hopes for Mike Johnson when he was elected as House Speaker.
Now I realize, he's just like McCarthy.
Uniparty.

I don't understand this perspective. He's doing his job, as was McCarthy, to broker deals where possible. Speaker can't be a hardliner or inflexible. He doesn't have a serious majority, if he acted like a hard ass we'd get nothing done and labeled as obstructionist. Best this we can do right now is stall where possible and compromise if necessary.

Who would you guys suggest that could perform the role better? I'm not talking about saying/agreeing with your talking points and ideals. Who would actually be successful at accomplishing what you want?

If Johnson compromises on any legislation than that means some of Biden's agenda made it through. Compromising means you're ok with some of their demands which means you're not a Republican.

quote:

Speaker can't be a hardliner or inflexible. He doesn't have a serious majority, if he acted like a hard ass we'd get nothing done and labeled as obstructionist.

Do you think Nancy Pelosi ever worried about the size of her majority?
No. She advanced her agenda.

quote:

He's doing his job, as was McCarthy, to broker deals where possible.

It's easy to "broker deals" to advance the Democrat agenda. It keeps you on the right side of the Intelligence Community, and it gets you invited to all the best parties.

If Johnson’s were inflexible and the place ground to a halt, I can’t see a downside. They wouldn’t be send more of our tax dollars elsewhere.

If you look in the dictionary under "compromise", you'll see "Republican". And, under "bulldozer", you'll see "Democrat".

Can't really argue with the last three comments.


That being said, who that could actually get the vote for the role would be more effectual, and do we really want the clown show that would result in vacating the position again?

I understand disagreeing on policy or results, but I'd prefer not to cut the hose off in spite of the face.

MTG is a whack job who is doing a fantastic job of fracturing what little Republican cohesion there is in the House. She has no plan other than Johnson is bad. It's same Gaetz moving to get rid of McCarthy.

It was a shit show to get McCarthy elected and another shit show to get Johnson elected. No Republican wants the job and Jordon and Scalise will pass too.

Republican members are quiting the House and there is no command authority that Johnson can muscle with room for error. The Dems love this and once there is a motion to vacate that's voted on, the Dems will relish the idea that Jeffries could become the Speaker or they may promise to back Johnson if he gives them subpoena power on committees.

MTG has valid points but she needs to see damage she'll cause if Johnson is removed. She should bite her tongue for 6 months and work to increase Republican numbers and then, make her big pitch in January.

Even Trump said Johnson was doing a good job under the circumstances. Johnson has little room to maneuver and MTG seems committed to an idea that is not going bear fruit. She has no workable ideas.

https://twitter.com/RepThomasM.../1779477481940001103