Tag: GOP congress

GOP congressmen are upset that airlines are training pilots who aren’t white men

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Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) accused United Airlines of engaging in ‘progressive fascism.’

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) unleashed a racist and sexist attack on United Airlines on Thursday, demanding to know which pilots receive training as part of the company’s new effort to diversify its workforce.

“Airlines should advertise the exact flights flown by pilots who were chosen as part of their new diversity programs rather than the outdated programs based solely on skill, experience, and qualifications,” Massie tweeted.

Massie was apparently upset about an announcement by United on Tuesday of its plans to launch a pilot training academy: “Our flight deck should reflect the diverse group of people on board our planes every day. That’s why we plan for 50% of the 5,000 pilots we train in the next decade to be women or people of color.” Continue reading.

Economist Paul Krugman: Republicans have no meaningful objections to Biden’s infrastructure plan — they simply ‘want him to fail’

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Having recently signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief/economic stimulus package — President Joe Biden is now promoting an ambitious infrastructure plan. Many Republicans, not surprisingly, are railing against the plan. Liberal economist Paul Krugman discusses their opposition this week in his Times column, stressing that Republicans have no meaningful objections to it — they simply want to see Biden fail as president.

“Republicans have been having a hard time explaining why they oppose President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan,” Krugman explains. “Their real motives aren’t a mystery. They want Biden to fail, just as they wanted President Barack Obama to fail, and will once again offer scorched-earth opposition to anything a Democratic president proposes. And they’re especially opposed to public programs that might prove popular, and thereby help legitimize activist government in voters’ minds.”

Because “laying out those true motives” would not “play well with the electorate, Krugman writes, Republicans are “looking for alternative attack lines”—for example, arguing that “most of the proposed spending isn’t really infrastructure.” Continue reading.

‘You voted against it’ trends as GOP tries to take credit for ‘bipartisan relief bill’ passed by Dems only

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Some Republican members of the House and Senate are trying to take credit for elements of the American Rescue Act after refusing to support the bill, prompting social media users to remind them: “YOU VOTED AGAINST IT!” 

That phrase trended on Twitter Sunday after at least four Republican congresspeople tried to convince their constituents they played a role in the broadly-backed $1.9 trillion stimulus package. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Thursday. No Republican in either the House or Senate supported the bill.

On Friday, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) took to Twitter to “announce that the Biden Administration has just implemented my bipartisan COVID relief bill.” Despite insisting she was “proud” that her “bipartisan legislation has officially become SBA policy,” Salazar failed to mention that she, herself, voted against the bill. Continue reading.

McConnell says Taylor Greene’s embrace of conspiracy theories a ‘cancer’

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday blasted Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s embrace of “loony lies and conspiracy theories” as a “cancer for the Republican Party.” 

“Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality,” McConnell said in a statement first shared with The Hill. “This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.”

McConnell didn’t mention Greene by name in his three-sentence statement, but his rare, scathing remarks about a freshman GOP lawmaker from the other chamber suggests he recognizes the potential damage her violent rhetoric and bizarre conspiracy theories could inflict on congressional Republicans as they try to take back both the House and Senate in next year’s midterms. Continue reading.

U.S. government debt will nearly equal the size of the entire economy for first time since World War II, CBO finds

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Report comes after huge increase in the deficit this year as government attempted to limit coronavirus fallout

For the first time since World War II, the U.S. government’s debt will roughly equal the size of the entire American economy by the end of this year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

The rapid change is largely due to the surge in new spending that the government authorized as it tried to control the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

By the end of 2020, the amount of debt owed by the United States will amount to 98 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the CBO said. That is up from 79 percent last year. Total government debt will surpass the U.S. economy’s size next year, the CBO said. Continue reading.

Republican leaders now say everyone should wear a mask — even as Trump refuses and has mocked some who do

Washington Post logoThe last Republican vice president, Richard B. Cheney, and his Wyoming congresswoman daughter, Liz, say wearing masks is manly.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says there should be no stigma associated with covering one’s face as public health experts advise, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) says doing so is essential to fully reopening the economy.

The GOP-led city of Jacksonville — which President Trump recently selected to host many of the Republican National Convention festivities in part because of its relatively lax public health restrictions — is now mandating people wear masks in indoor public spaces. And even Sean Hannity and Steve Doocy, two of Trump’s most fervent and loyal boosters on Fox News Channel, have joined the chorus of mask advocates. Continue reading.

‘They’re cooked’: Trump team ‘terrified’ because voters are no longer buying GOP’s racist ‘hoodoo juice’

AlterNet logoIn a column for the Daily Beast, longtime political observer Michael Tomasky wrote that Donald Trump and Republicans hoping to ride their coded language and veiled racist rhetoric to victory in November are starting to realize it is no longer working on voters and they are “terrified.”

With the public in an uproar over the murder of George Floyd — among others Black Americans  — at the hands of police, the columnist suggested that we have possibly entered into a new era where one of the Republicans major talking points come election time are falling on deaf ears as voters increasingly reject racist appeals for their votes.

Noting the Republicans and the president likely “hate” the change in attitude, Tomasky points out that their future as a governing party hangs in the balance if they don’t adapt to evolving attitudes in a country that is rapidly becoming more diverse. Continue reading.

That Trump Tweet? Republicans Prefer Not to See It

New York Times logoEven when presented with a printout of the president’s incendiary Twitter comment, Republicans toiled to avoid commenting.

WASHINGTON — On the 161st day of the fourth year of the Trump presidency, having grown accustomed to Republican lawmakers’ favorite excuse for refusing to comment on President Trump’slatest incendiary tweet, reporters resorted to a rare tactic.

They printed out copies of Mr. Trump’s post — this one containing an unsubstantiated suggestion that an older protester shoved and injured by the police in Buffalo was an Antifa provocateur who staged his own assault — for any Republican who might try to fall back on what has become a stock response: “I didn’t see the tweet.”

It did not work. Even faced with documentary evidence of the president’s inflammatory remark, most Republicans averted their gaze on Tuesday, declining to comment as they darted through the hallways of Capitol Hill and appearing to wish away what was on paper in front of them. Continue reading.

GOP lawmakers stick to Trump amid new criticism

The Hill logoRepublicans are largely standing by — or at least not openly defying — President Trump as the country faces crises that have led to new criticisms of him from old allies.

Trump’s response to the police killing of George Floyd, and days of protests, sparked high-profile criticism from GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and former officials like Defense Secretary James Mattis, underscoring the unease in certain parts of the party to the president’s actions.

But there are no signs, yet, that Republicans are ready to tilt into full open rebellion against Trump, who remains popular with the same base of voters they will need in only months. Instead, most GOP senators are finding a way to praise, or at least not directly criticize, Trump.  Continue reading.

The Future Of: Oversight