Tag: GOP House

This is why Republicans were so desperate to keep Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker again

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images

Trump caves.

Nancy Pelosi has been speaker of the House for just 22 days, and she just humiliated the president of the United States.

Ever since President Donald Trump shut down much of the government last month, Pelosi has delivered a consistent message to Trump — “my offer to you is this: nothing.” On Friday, Trump took that offer, announcing his support for a short-term funding bill that will reopen the government for three weeks without any additional funding for a border wall.

Trump’s cave on Friday is absolute. He will reopen the government and he will not get his wall. Pelosi wins. Trump loses.

View the complete January 25 article by Ian Millhiser on the ThinkProgress website here.

A eulogy for the most incompetent House majority in modern history

Mitch McConnel, Paul Ryan, Donald Trump and Mike Pence celebrating GOP tax cut for the rich bill. Credit: Official White House Photo

Let us all give thanks for the miracle of Republican ineptitude.

Long before Donald Trump’s second-place finish somehow landed him in the White House, Republicans in Congress promised a package of benefit cuts, privatization, and tax cuts for the wealthy that were so cruel, American voters literally refused to believe they were real. In 2012, a Democratic super PAC decided not to campaign against future Speaker Paul Ryan’s package of Medicare vouchers and upper income tax cuts after participants in a focus group “simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing.”

Under the Republican Party’s Medicare plan, seniors’ out-of-pocket health costs would literally double. Some of their plans cut Medicaid spending on poor people’s health care in half — and then slashed even deeper in later years. The GOP would have even kicked 1.5 million people off of food stamps, leaving many families hungry while the wealthiest Americans suckle at the teat of Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

Two years later, the Trump administration remains cruel, racist, and deeply corrupt. Yet its saving grace — and that of its Republican allies in Congress — is that it is so bumblingly incompetent, the GOP’s toxic legislative agenda never really got off the ground. Rich people got their tax cuts (a gimme during any period when Republicans control Congress and the White House), but the wholesale overhaul of the welfare state that Ryan’s dreamed about since he was “drinking at a keg” never manifested.

View the complete January 3 article by Ian Millhiser on the ThinkProgress.org website here.

Trump vents frustration over wall funding, fueling uncertainty over shutdown

President Trump on Thursday blamed Congress for refusing his request for border-wall funding, fueling uncertainty about whether he will sign a spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown.

“When I begrudgingly signed the Omnibus Bill, I was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership. Would be done by end of year (NOW). It didn’t happen! We foolishly fight for Border Security for other countries – but not for our beloved U.S.A. Not good!” he tweeted.

Trump also planned to meet with House Republicans at noon to discuss plans to avoid a shutdown, which have been thrown into disarray by the president’s change of heart.

View the complete December 20 article by Jordan Fabian on The Hill website here.

Comey rips Trump, GOP over ‘lying’

Former FBI Director James Comey on Monday railed against President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, arguing their attacks on the FBI made no sense.

Comey slammed GOP lawmakers for remaining silent while he said Trump disregarded the rule of law.

“So another day of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Steele dossier,” Comey told reporters after he was interviewed for roughly six hours behind closed doors. “This while the president of the United States is lying about the FBI, attacking the FBI and attacking the rule of law in this country. How does that make any sense?”

Watch: Google CEO Rejects Claims of Search Bias Against GOP

The House Judiciary Committee questioned Google CEO Sundar Pichai about widespread belief among many on the right that the search giant and other tech companies consistently filter out conservative news in favor of liberal results. Pichai explained Google search results are based on specific frameworks that employees can’t manipulate for any person, topic, or category.

View the December 13 post by Jerel Flint on The Roll Call website here. 

GOP leaders still lack funding plan as shutdown looms

House Republicans are eager to give Trump his wall, but it’s not clear how they’ll get there amid low morale among departing GOP lawmakers.

Top House Republicans are at a standstill on exactly how to keep the government open next week amid mounting fears of a Christmastime shutdown on Capitol Hill.

House GOP leaders couldn’t agree on a funding strategy — which involves billions of dollars for President Donald Trump’s border wall — in multiple rounds of talks Wednesday.

The House is now poised to leave town Thursday for five days without offering a clue to how it would avoid a crippling funding lapse for roughly a dozen agencies.

View the complete December 12 article by Sarah Ferris and John Breshahan on the Politico.com website here.

Trump shock leaves Republicans anxious over 2019

Republican lawmakers are struggling to coordinate their message with President Trump heading into a divided Congress after he pulled the rug out from them once again by declaring he would be “proud” to shut down the government.

Trump shocked Republicans, who were preparing to blame Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) for a potential partial shutdown, when he said he would take sole responsibility for shuttering federal agencies if Congress doesn’t meet his demand for $5 billion in wall funding.

The televised performance left GOP senators perplexed — and worried about what’s in store for them over the next two years — as they try to work with Trump and against resurgent House Democrats led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who’s poised to be the next Speaker.

View the complete December 13 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Republicans Will Own The Trump Shutdown

Donald Trump is responsible for a government shutdown. He said it himself, “I will be the one to shut it down.” And Republicans won’t be able to try to blame Democrats. Trump himself even told Democrats, “I’m not going to blame you for it.”

Trump took away a key Republican talking point. Now they will own the Trump Shutdown:

Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler: “hmm, there goes that GOP talking point.”

CBS’s Ed O’Keefe: “‘I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck,’ President Trump tells Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, robbing Republicans of a potential talking point that it’s Democrats eager to shut down the government.”

Politico’s Jake Sherman: “THE PRESIDENT has just robbed Republicans of the ability to say Democrats are shutting down government.”

NPR’s Kelsey Snell: “To be clear, this statement makes it VERY hard for Congressional Republicans to keep saying a shutdown would be Democrats’ fault. The president is literally claiming responsibility”

House Republican Campaign Committee Says It Was Hacked This Year

Senior House Republicans, including Speaker Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader, were not aware of the breach until reporters reached out to them. Credit: Al Drago, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The campaign committee for House Republicans discovered in April that the email accounts of several of its senior officials had been hacked by what analysts later concluded was a “foreign entity,” people who have been briefed on the case said on Tuesday, highlighting the continued vulnerability of the United States to interference in its elections.

The hack of the organization, the National Republican Congressional Committee, exposed thousands of emails from four senior aides for months, and perhaps longer. The hack was terminated when the staff members, alerted to the intrusion, changed their passwords. The committee called in the F.B.I. to investigate.

But the committee waited eight months — until after Republicans lost 40 seats and control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections — to disclose publicly what had happened. It remains unclear who was behind the hack.

View the complete December 4 article by David E. Sanger and Emily Cochrane on The New York Times website here.

Clock ticks down on GOP Congress

Lawmakers are facing an end-of-the-year traffic jam with legislation piling up and a tight schedule that leaves them little wiggle room.

Leadership is juggling a backlog of must-pass bills and nominations as well as eleventh-hour requests from rank-and-file members as legislators try to cram as much as possible into the final days of the work year. Republicans, in particular, are feeling pressure to make a last-ditch effort as they prepare to cede control of the House to Democrats in January.

But the schedule got further scrambled following former President George H.W. Bush’s death, with Washington expected to dedicate days to mourning the 41st president. House Republicans announced Monday they are canceling votes for the week, while the Senate is delaying the start of its work week.

View the complete December 4 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.