Tag: Freedom Caucus

Dems To The Rescue

Freedom Caucus ideologue MTG has made it clear that she does not want Speaker Johnson to remain in the position and she will lead the charge to oust him from the speakership.

But it looks like her effort was dashed ……Johnson was saved by the Dems….

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to oust Speaker Mike Johnson was met with boos, laughter, and 359 votes against in the House on Wednesday, quelling the Georgia Republican’s long-threatened revolt. Greene’s measure won the support of only 10 other Republicans and 32 Democrats, 163 of whom backed keeping Johnson while seven voted present. GOP members booed as Greene introduced her measure earlier in the day, the Washington Post reports. When Majority Whip Steve Scalise immediately moved to kill it, nearly all members yelled their approval, with only the voices of Greene and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie heard to say “nay.” Laughter followed.

“This is the uniparty for the American people watching,” Greene said as she was being booed. Afterward, Johnson expressed appreciation to the members who declined to end his speakership after six months. “Hopefully, this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress,” he said. “It’s regrettable, it’s not who we are as Americans, and we’re better than this.” He had the support of Donald Trump, who posted online Wednesday that “this is not the time” for a motion to vacate. Trump called Johnson a “good man who is trying very hard,” per CBS News.

ohnson and Greene had met a couple of times this week, though he denied negotiating with her to keep the job. Demands by Greene and Massie, per the Post, included that Johnson act to:

  • Allow no more aid to be sent to Ukraine this year.
  • Put only bills on the floor that most Republicans support.
  • Move to defund all Justice Department investigations of Trump.
  • Pass a dozen individual spending bills or institute a 1% reduction across government agencies.

Johnson did not give the pair an answer.

Did Trump in his insistence that the GOP unite help save Johnson’s job?

Did the Dems save Johnson’s speakership out of the kindness in their hearts?

Did the Dems get anything for their help?

Is MTG done with her symbolic antics?

How much more time will be wasted in the attempts to make a Speaker resign?

Do they not realize that the country is circling the drain and they play games.

Once again please tell me what we pay these slugs to do.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

She’s A Super Freak

Most people that follow politics will know about Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado antics…..the theatrics on the floor of the House, her mouthy conspiracies and her very public argument with fellow Freedom Caucus member, MTG…..but last week her (Boebert) antics got bit sticky while attending a play…..

Lauren Boebert’s Beetlejuice controversy is not fading away in media coverage in her home state of Colorado. The Republican congresswoman was booted from a Denver theater over the weekend after people around her complained she was vaping and generally being too loud and disturbing during the musical. Boebert sarcastically acknowledged she got thrown out for “laughing and singing too loud,” though she denied the vaping part. Now, however, NBC affiliate 9News has obtained video that it says “clearly shows Boebert vaping.” The video is here. And the Denver Post further reports that the woman who asked Boebert to stop vaping is pregnant. Boebert rejected her request, the woman said.

“The guy she was with offered to buy me and my husband cocktails,” the woman tells the Megan Schrader of the Post, who slammed Boebert’s “astounding sense of entitlement” in the opinion piece. “I’m pregnant!” An incident report from the Buell Theatre said ushers received three different complaints about Boebert and her partner “vaping, singing, (and) causing a disturbance,” per 9News. “These people in front of us were outrageous,” the woman tells Schrader. “I’ve never seen anyone act like that before.” 9News adds this description: “The footage shows her taking photos with the flash on during the performance. She’s also seen raising arms and clapping while almost everyone is seen sitting quietly.”

All that was bad enough for a standing member of Congress but there is more to this story….(Cue Rick James and Super Freak)….

As more and more details are being revealed about Rep. Lauren Boebert‘s wild night out in Denver last weekend — having been kicked out of “Beetlejuice” the musical for vaping and just generally being a public nuisance with her male companion — a full picture is coming together of what the other theater patrons around her that night had to endure.

Newly released footage of the night in question appears to show Boebert’s exposed breasts being fondled by her date for an extended period of time while she, in turn, dawdles around in his lap with her hand. As many have pointed out on social media, having seen this footage, children were seated all around the couple that night, within viewing range of what they were up to.

“Laurent Boebert was jerking her date off in public while he gropes her in a theater where children were present and yet she continues to attack LGBTQ people as ‘threats to children,'” writes journalist and clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo on X, sharing the footage of Boebert in the act. 

(salon.com)

Girls just want to have fun.

To be fair I have been able to see this footage because it is on “X” and I am not because I am a bad person and will not support Musk blindly….but anyone still on the platform should look it up and see what all the hoopla is about.

There some interesting photos in this piece….

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12525153/Lauren-Boeberts-Democrat-boyfriend-apology-Beetlejuice.html

The AP reports that Boebert has now issued an apology for the Sunday disturbance at Denver’s Buell Theatre. In her statement.

Will anything come out of this slide down the station she has perched herself on….or will it just be more antics for attention?

Will McCarthy act like a leader and do something about her performance?

Is there more that we do not know?

Stay tuned!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–21Mar23

It seems the mouth of the Freedom Caucus has a brilliant idea….MTG wants to label antifa as a terrorist organization…..seriously.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said on Sunday that she will be introducing a resolution to declare Antifa as a terrorist organization on Tuesday, after blaming the group for protests at a police training facility in Atlanta.

“Antifa are domestic terrorists and I’m introducing my resolution to officially declare them a terrorist organization on Tuesday,” she tweeted on Sunday.

(thehill.com)

This is a waste of time….

Organization?

“an administrative and functional structure (such as a business or a political party)“

I am sick of this stupidity!

Antifa has no national headquarters, no national spokesperson, no one pays dues, there are no organized meetings…..there is nothing that would even suggest that they are an organized group.

Instead it is just a loose group of people who hate fascists…..and that scares the GOP….why?  Use you imagination.

I put this in the same vane as those that want to ban the BDS movement that is protests of Israel for their barbaric treatment of the Palestinian people.

This has NOTHING to do with religion (personally do not care what they believe) and more about the government treatment of a minority.

MTG is just excited that she now has a voice and can spread her unique form of hatred and stupidity.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Far Right Demands

Let’s start the week with some outrageous Right wing demands.

These are the demands being made by House far righters, the Freedom Caucus, (love the name it is anything but about freedom)….

The debt ceiling debate is about to begin and these are the demands from the far right for that debate.

A cadre of far-right Republicans announced Friday that they may only vote to raise the debt ceiling if Congress agrees to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending, limit federal agencies’ future budgets, and abandon progressive elements of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.

Since Washington’s arbitrary and arguably unconstitutional borrowing limit was breached in January, the Treasury Department has implemented “extraordinary measures” enabling the U.S. government to meet its obligations for a few additional months. Unless the Biden administration takes unilateral action to disarm the debt ceiling, Congress has until sometime between July and September to increase or suspend the nation’s borrowing cap. If Republicans refuse to do so, the U.S. is poised to suffer a catastrophic default.

Led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the House Freedom Caucus said Friday in a statement that its 45 members would “consider voting” to raise the debt limit if their colleagues in the House and Senate agree to:

  • Eliminate Biden’s $400 billion student debt cancellation plan;
  • Rescind unspent Covid-19 relief funds;
  • Nix nearly $400 billion worth of clean energy investments approved in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA);
  • Repeal the IRA’s roughly $80 billion funding boost for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS);
  • Restore Clinton-era work requirements on welfare recipients;
  • Require congressional approval before any major federal regulations can take effect;
  • Cap future federal spending at 2022 levels for the next 10 years; and
  • Find “every dollar spent by Democrats that can be reclaimed for the American taxpayer.”

This is the official release from the Caucus…

Image

I see lots that will effect the common voter and very little about actually decreasing the “reach” of government.

I love these ‘small government’ conservatives and their alt-right blowhards.

What crap!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

OMG! Do We Agree?

I have said a lot of things about the so-called ‘Freedom Caucus’ and its members….and none has been kind so when I read what a couple of its members are proposing I found myself in agreement….(the horror)

MTG and Gaetz have offered a couple of ideas that I can say that I agree with but mostly in principle.

MTG has introduced a bill that would audit Ukrainian aid…..

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has reintroduced a bill that would force an audit of all military aid the United States has sent Ukraine since the Russian invasion one year ago.

Greene’s legislation comes as the U.S. has committed tens of billions of dollars in military assistance since Russia invaded Ukraine last February. The Georgia Republican introduced the resolution of inquiry in the House on Friday, marking the one-year anniversary of the invasion.

“It’s going to force Congress to give the American people an audit,” Greene told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday. “And that is exactly what the American people need, an audit of Ukraine, because we have no idea where all this money’s going.”

Greene’s resolution calls on President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to hand over all documents or financial statements detailing “purchases, recipients, and government expenditures” that were “directed to the nation of Ukraine — whether in regard to military, civilian, or financial aid,” according to a copy of the resolution obtained by the Washington Examiner. 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/marjorie-taylor-greene-introduces-bill-requesting-audit-ukraine-aid

Then there is Gaetz who has offered up issues that I could support….

First his bill on Ukraine….

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a resolution on Thursday that calls for an immediate end to US military and financial support for Ukraine and urges the warring sides to negotiate a ceasefire.

The Ukraine Fatigue Resolution was led by Gaetz and received 10 other co-sponsors. If passed, it would express that it is the sense of the House that “the United States must end its military and financial aid to Ukraine” and urges “all combatants to reach a peace agreement.”

Throughout the war, Gaetz has been critical of US support for Ukraine and has previously called for an end to the policy. “President Joe Biden must have forgotten his prediction from March 2022, suggesting that arming Ukraine with military equipment will escalate the conflict to ‘World War III,’” Gaetz said in a statement on his resolution.

“America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war. We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately,” he added.

The other co-sponsors for the resolution are Reps. Andy Biggs (AZ), Lauren Boebert (CO), Paul Gosar (AZ), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Anna Paulina Luna (FL), Thomas Massie (KY), Mary Miller (IL), Barry Moore (AL), Ralph Norman (SC), and Matt Rosendale (MT).

Gaetz’s resolution notes that the US has already authorized over $110 billion to spend on the war in less than a year. The introduction comes after a series of escalations of US military aid, including M1 Abrams tanks, and Ukraine is now seeking fighter jets from the US and its allies. Each escalation risks a direct clash between Russia and NATO, which could quickly spiral into nuclear war.

(antiwar.com)

His next idea is another one that I can get behind…..it involves Syria and US troops….

Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced a resolution to force the House to vote on directing President Joe Biden to remove the U.S. military from Syria, where they have been involved since 2014, the Florida Republican congressman’s office announced Wednesday. 

Gaetz, a House Armed Services Committee member, filed the one-page War Powers Resolution on Tuesday after four U.S. servicemembers and a working dog were wounded in a raid that resulted in the death of a senior Islamic State leader.

The House must vote on Gaetz’s proposal within 18 days of its introduction because of the special status granted to war powers resolutions. If the resolution passes, U.S. troops must be removed from Syria within 15 days.

“Congress has never authorized the use of military force in Syria,” Gaetz said. “America First means actually putting the people of our country first — not the interests of the Military Industrial Complex.”

While these are excellent ideas I find it hard to believe that a Repub would go contrary to what the M-IC wants….this smells a lot like political theater and not rational proposals.

These probably will go nowhere basically because the lobbyist control all votes in the Congress….and these will not be popular with those with all the cash.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The ‘Freedom Caucus’

Ever notice that these people give their BS all these patriotic sounding titles….like the ‘Fair Tax Act’, Freedom Caucus and none of them have anything patriotic attached to it in reality.

For this post I want to write about the ultra-conserv caucus within the House of Representatives, the Freedom Caucus……

The group, which includes many veterans of the Tea Party movement, was formed in January with the declared aim of pushing the House GOP leadership rightward on certain fiscal and social issues. More broadly, the caucus wants power shifted away from the leadership to the rank-and-file (by, for instance, giving committees more leeway on which bills to move forward and allowing more amendments to come to floor votes).

Unlike the plethora of caucuses and committees – which range from the Ad Hoc Congressional Committee for Irish Affairs to the House GOP Study Group – the Freedom Caucus does not officially disclose who belongs to it (aside from its nine founding members), though various unofficial lists have circulated. Membership is by invitation only, and meetings are not public.

The caucus originated during the mid-January 2015 Republican congressional retreat in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  According to founding member Mick Mulvaney, “that was the first time we got together and decided we were a group, and not just a bunch of pissed-off guys”.  Nine conservative Republican members of the House began planning a new congressional caucus separate from the Republican Study Committee and apart from the House Republican Conference. The founding members who constituted the first board of directors for the new caucus were Republican representatives Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Jim Jordan of Ohio, John Fleming of Louisiana, Matt Salmon of Arizona, Justin Amash of Michigan, Raúl Labrador of Idaho, Mulvaney of South Carolina, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Mark Meadows of North Carolina.

(wikipedia.org)

Like the forerunner of the group, the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus never intended to lead only to disrupt.

At the beginning of this month, the House endured the longest contest to elect a speaker in 164 years. Rep. Kevin McCarthy ultimately was elected speaker, but only after he made several concessions to a small but influential faction of dissenting conservative Republicans. Though not every member of the Freedom Caucus — a far-right coalition of Republican lawmakers — voted against McCarthy, nearly every member who did oppose him was a member of the Freedom Caucus.

That commonality has drawn renewed attention to the Freedom Caucus and its role within Congress. Despite being a minority in the House, the Freedom Caucus has repeatedly punched above its weight and effected genuine change in the chamber. Powerful political factions are as old as American politics, and in most ways, the Freedom Caucus is just a continuation of that tradition. But in a few key ways, its members are doing something different: voting as a bloc, willing to go against their own party’s leadership and to gum up the works to make a statement. Those differences have allowed the Freedom Caucus to exercise influence over the better part of the past decade — and are why it’s only just getting started.

Modern congressional caucuses emerged in the last century, though less formal organizations of like-minded members have existed in Congress since the start, according to Ruth Bloch Rubin, a political science professor at the University of Chicago and the author of “Building the Bloc: Intraparty Organization in the U.S. Congress.” During the Progressive Era in the early 20th century, a group of insurgent Republicans worked alongside Democrats to strip away some of the powers that had been consolidated by the speaker. In the 1960s and ’70s, the left-leaning Democratic Study Group worked to push through civil rights legislation (along with, later, the Congressional Black Caucus), against bitter opposition from conservative Southern Democrats.

Typically, such influential intraparty factions emerge only when parties find themselves especially divided, Bloch Rubin said. “It’s usually because there’s enough of a cleavage within the party that these sort of factions have enough members and the distance between one faction and a competitor faction within the same party is enough that it warrants this kind of organizational work,” she said.

The Freedom Caucus Was Designed To Disrupt

This caucus was designed to be a distraction from the silliness of the GOP….they are there to disrupt and play political games not to govern.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Sex And The Freedom Caucus

Since in inception the Freedom Caucus has shown to be anything but a good spokesman for Freedom.

It seems that sexual abuse is around for two of the most vocal members of the Caucus….

First there is Jim (Gym) Jordan and the allegations that he looked the other way during sexual abuse on the OSU wrestling team while Jordan was a coach.

A former Ohio State wrestler has accused Rep. Jim Jordan — one of the most powerful conservatives in Congress — of knowingly ignoring sexual abuse allegations while Jordan was a wrestling coach at Ohio State University.

In April, Ohio State announced it was opening an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against its former wrestling team physician, Dr. Richard Strauss. 

Strauss, who served as the team’s doctor from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, died in 2005. Jordan, an Ohio Republican first elected to the House in 2006, worked as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from 1987 until 1995.

Jordan has been contacted by officials investigating the abuse allegations but he has not yet responded, according to a spokeswoman for the law firm representing Ohio State.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/03/jim-jordan-accused-ignoring-sexual-abuse-allegations-ohio-state/754455002/

Now Jordan’s buddy and co-member of the Freedom Caucus, Matt Gaetz has been cited in a sex trafficking case……and of course there is a good excuse…..

Rep. Matt Gaetz has confirmed that he is under federal investigation for “sexual conduct with women”—but he says the allegations “are as searing as they are false.” The conservative Florida Republican confirmed the investigation to Axios hours after the New York Times reported that investigators are looking into whether the 38-year-old had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and violated sex-trafficking laws by paying for her to travel with him. Sources told the Times that the Justice Department investigation was opened during the final months of the Trump administration. The sources said the Gaetz investigation was connected to the investigation of Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Florida who was indicted last year on charges including sex trafficking of a child.

“I have a suspicion that someone is trying to recategorize my generosity to ex-girlfriends as something more untoward,” Gaetz tells the Times. Gaetz, who has not been charged, tells Axios that the allegations are part of “an extortion effort against my family for $25 million.” He says there are “people at the Department of Justice who are trying to criminalize my sexual conduct, you know when I was a single guy.” He announced his engagement in December. Gaetz says he definitely “provided” for women he dated and paid for flights and hotel rooms, but he is “absolutely confident” none of them were underage. Earlier Tuesday, Axios reported that sources said Gaetz, who was first elected to the House in 2016, was considering leaving Congress before the next election to take a job at Newsmax.

Like all good cowards….he will run for cover in the conspiracy world of NewsMax.

Finally, what fresh Hell is hiding in the membership of the Freedom Caucus?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Enter The Congressional Circus

Finally!  Proof we have all searched for…….we have watched these pathetic losers for a long painful time……and not being amused at their lies and antics and now they have done what I thought they could not possibly do……

On many occasions I have called the Congress a circus…..and yesterday in a 9 and half hour tear proved my point beyond a shadow of  doubt…..I watched most of it (as much as I could stomach) and have never been more proud of the GOP for showing their true face…..

The FBI agent who got caught up in a texting scandal over his views about President Trump testified on Capitol Hill Thursday, and it was volatile from the very start. “Heated and sometimes chaotic” is how the Washington Post describes it, and the AP had the same vibe with “bitterly contentious and occasionally chaotic.” Peter Strzok testified that he regretted sending those anti-Trump texts, including one infamous one in which he says “we’ll stop” Trump’s election, but emphatically insisted that his personal views in no way affected his work on two investigations in 2016 of Hillary Clinton and Trump. Republicans, however, weren’t buying it. Details:

  • Opening statement: “Not once in my 26 years of defending my nation did my personal opinions impact any official action I took,” Strzok said in his opening statement. “There is simply no evidence of bias in my professional actions.” He also said the hearing by the House judiciary and oversight committees “is just another victory notch in (Vladimir) Putin’s belt and another milestone in our enemies’ campaign to tear America apart.” Read the full text via Politico.
  • Versus Gowdy: GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy went after Strzok quickly. “Agent Strzok had Donald Trump impeached before he even started investigating him,” he said. “That is bias. Agent Strzok may not see it but the rest of the country does, and it is not what we want, expect or deserve from any law enforcement officer much less the FBI.” At one point, Strzok accused Gowdy of twisting his words and said he didn’t appreciate it. “I don’t give a damn what you appreciate,” responded Gowdy. “I don’t appreciate an FBI agent with an unprecedented level of animus working on two major investigations in 2016.”
  • Contempt threat: When Strzok said he wouldn’t answer questions about the FBI investigations, GOP Rep. Bob Goodlatte threatened to hold him in contempt. Democrat Eric Swalwell then countered about holding Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to answer questions at an earlier hearing, reports Fox News. In the end, nobody was held in contempt. Throughout the hearing, however, “Democrats tried to run interference for Mr. Strzok, using parliamentary points of order and other tactics to protect him from Republican prying,” per the New York Times.
  • Video: Mediaite has a clip of the “absolute chaos.”
  • Notorious text: “I don’t recall writing that text,” Strzok said of the one in which he wrote “we’ll stop” Trump’s election, reports Axios. “What I can tell you is that text in no way suggested that I or the FBI would take any action to influence the candidacy of candidate Trump.” Strzok also said the text came after Trump’s criticism of the family of a US soldier in Iraq. “You need to understand that was written late at night, off-the-cuff,” he said, per the Wall Street Journal. “My presumption, based on that horrible, disgusting behavior, [was] that the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States.”
  • Lisa Page: Strzok is under internal investigation by the FBI and is on what amounts to administrative leave. The FBI lawyer with whom he shared anti-Trump texts, Lisa Page, left the agency. She will meet behind closed doors Friday and Monday with members of Congress, reports CNN. Trump tweeted about her on Wednesday. “What can she possibly say about her statements and lies,” he wrote.

I would like to thank the GOP especially the slugs in the Tea Party’s Freedom Caucus for proving that I was correct when I called US Congress a silly unprofessional circus.  Thank you for proving my point!  It’s Miller Time!