Tag: House GOP

House GOP leader McCarthy backs Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene

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House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy declared on Wednesday that he supports keeping Rep. Liz Cheney in her leadership role and opposes stripping Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee seats at this time, sources familiar with his closed-door remarks told Axios.

Why it matters: In keeping Greene, McCarthy risks public condemnation and fuels a Democratic effort to remove her through a House vote. In standing with Cheney, he also risks alienating himself from pro-Trump Republicans who remain a potent part of the Republicans’ base.

  • McCarthy (R-Calif.) made his declarations at the outset of a much-anticipated meeting of House Republicans.
  • He then outlined his positions in a statement issued to the media. Continue reading.

Trump Allies Eye Long-Shot Election Reversal in Congress, Testing Pence

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Some House Republicans plan to try to use Congress’s tallying of electoral results on Jan. 6 to tip the election to President Trump. The attempt will put Republicans in a pinch.

President Trump lost key swing states by clear margins. His barrage of lawsuits claiming widespread voting fraud has been almost universally dismissed, most recently by the Supreme Court. And on Monday, the Electoral College will formally cast a majority of its votes for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

But as the president continues to refuse to concede, a small group of his most loyal backers in Congress is plotting a final-stage challenge on the floor of the House of Representatives in early January to try to reverse Mr. Biden’s victory.

Constitutional scholars and even members of the president’s own party say the effort is all but certain to fail. But the looming battle on Jan. 6 is likely to culminate in a messy and deeply divisive spectacle that could thrust Vice President Mike Pence into the excruciating position of having to declare once and for all that Mr. Trump has indeed lost the election. Continue reading.

House Republican Report On Workers Is Bursting With Lies About Labor Unions

Ten House Republicans who fashion themselves policy wonks are out with their diagnosis of what ails the American worker. Their proposed cure is a future that would be brutish, nasty and short.

The Hobbesian, dog-eat-dog policies the Republican Study Group proposes would enhance the power of those born to privilege, just so long as nothing knocks them off their comfortable perch.

The report proposes:

  1. No forgiveness of student loans even though our federal government authorized students to borrow huge sums to attend worthless commercial schools that went bankrupt, leaving them with no degree, just debt. The Republican plan lacks even the mercy provisions for debtors written into Hammurabi’s Code almost 4,000 years ago, which wiped away debts when storms, war or corruption ruined a borrower’s finances.
  2. A turn away from comprehensive higher education, especially liberal arts, to focus on technical skills and employability. Forget about developing the rigorous and thoughtful minds that enable young people to become informed citizens. Continue reading.

Rep. Jim Jordan yells and throws a hearing into chaos over his ‘fringe conspiracy theories’

AlterNet logoRep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) threw the entire House Judiciary Committee’s hearing with four of the top big tech CEOs into a three-ring circus on Wednesday when Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) opened her five-minute allotment of questioning by appearing to suggest he is a conspiracy theorist.

“I’d like to direct your attention to anti-trust law rather than fringe conspiracy theories,” Congresswoman Scanlon declared.

Congressman Jordan, both maskless and jacketless, broke House decorum by interrupting his colleague, and by shouting: “Mr. Chairman, we have the email – there is no fringe conspiracy –” Continue reading.

Internal Polls Show Trump Jeopardizing Safe GOP House Seats

Republicans entered the 2020 cycle as longshots to win control of the House back after the party was unceremoniously swept out of power in the midterm elections.

But the GOP hoped to at least chip away at the Democrats’ majority in November, when Democrats will be defending 31 seats Donald Trump carried in 2016.

Yet a trio of recent House polls shows Trump’s unpopularity is hampering that effort, dragging down Republicans in districts they’ve held for years — and raising the possibility that the party will slip further into the minority once the election is through. Continue reading.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed what the GOP’s anti-tax rhetoric is really all about

AlterNet logoNewt Gingrich is usually, and rightly, blamed for destroying American politics, even more than Donald Trump. The former House Speaker didn’t go to Washington in the 1970s to strike deals. He went there to wage soft civil war against the United States.

But if there’s a close second to the title of America’s Worst Person, it probably goes to someone you never heard of. He’s not a politician. He’s not a pundit or bureaucrat. When it comes to influencing the GOP’s attitude toward taxing, spending and budgets, however, it would be hard to find someone more influential than Grover Norquist.

Norquist is the head of Americans for Tax Reform. The name is a misnomer. It doesn’t want to “reform” taxes so much as get rid of taxes on the very, very rich. Norquist is probably most famous for saying, in 2001, that he doesn’t want to abolish government per se. “I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can … drown it in the bathtub.” Continue reading.

Trump could sink the House GOP in suburbia

President Donald Trump’s continuing erosion among well-educated voterslooms as perhaps the most imposing headwind to Republican hopes of recapturing the House of Representatives in November — or even avoiding further losses in the chamber.

In 2018, a suburban revolt against Trump powered Democrats to sweeping gains in white-collar House districts from coast to coast. The backlash left the GOP holding only about one-fourth of all House districts that have more college graduates than the national average, down from more than two-fifths before the election, according to a new CNN analysis of census data.

Now, recent national and district-level polls signal that many of the well-educated voters souring on Trump are also displaying more resistance to Republican congressional candidates than in 2018 — potentially much more. Continue reading.

House Republicans call Black Lives Matter protests ‘organized crime’

The House GOP wants to target the Black Lives Matter movement using anti-racketeering laws created to prosecute the Mafia.

Congressional Republicans from the House Freedom Caucus on Thursday held an event to attack the protest movement that has risen up against racism and police violence following the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his throat for more than 8 minutes while Floyd pleaded that he could not breathe.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), chair of the caucus, called on federal prosecutors to utilize the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against protesters. RICO was passed to in the 1970s, originally to target the Mafia.

“Our U.S. attorneys need to be prosecuting cases,” said Biggs. “We can look at RICO, the racketeering laws apply to many in this case. ” Continue reading.

Hell hath no fury like a president suckered

Washington Post logoRep. Jim Jordan (R-Anger Management Class) followed the plan to the letter.

The House Oversight Committee held a video Q&A Tuesday with Christi Grimm, the civil servant who earned a verbal lashing from President Trump, and got replaced from her position as top in-house watchdog at the Department of Health and Human Services after she documented critical shortages of protective equipment at the nation’s hospitals.

As the ranking Republican on the panel, Jordan couldn’t very well defend Trump’s quashing of yet another whistleblower, and he didn’t try. Instead, he did what president and party demand of him: He blamed China. Continue reading.

GOP lawmakers say they don’t want to put Steve King back on committees

The Hill logoTop Republicans are pushing back at the idea of putting Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) back on committees he was removed from last year following his controversial comments about white supremacy and Western civilization. 

“It’s bullshit. We have not discussed this at steering,” one member of the Steering Committee, which with GOP leadership decides committee assignments, told The Hill.

King — who is facing a primary challenge from state Sen. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) — said he and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) reached a deal in which McCarthy will advocate that King take his place back on the committees. Continue reading.