💣 The Disastrous 118th Congress - MAGA Mike Johnson Saved by Shadow Speaker Hakeem Jeffries

[Dr. Ken]

Even though this is senate related the title does refer to the 118th congress. John Kennedy taking back the title of the most embarrassing person with the last name Kennedy

[Suranis]

The advantage of having someone in your head is that you don't have to be annoyed by the real idiot in your ear.

[p0rtia]

Dana Millbank gives us a lengthy laundry list of 118 insanity. Sort of liberal porn, but hey, I'm over 18.

Gift link.

https://wapo.st/3ZqzGnZ

How Trump made this the most dysfunctional Congress in 164 years
Republicans spent two years sabotaging the U.S. House. Another two years would be ruinous.

Adapted from “Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists and Dunces who Burned Down the House,” by Dana Milbank.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Six weeks after his improbable rise from obscurity to speaker of the House in late 2023, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson decided to break bread with a group of Christian nationalists. He gave the keynote address (at the Museum of the Bible) to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a group whose founder, “proud” Christian nationalist Jason Rapert, has said: “I reject that being a Christian Nationalist is somehow unseemly or wrong.”

Rapert’s organization promoted the pine-tree “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which was among the banners flown at the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021 — and which, by total and remarkable coincidence, was proudly displayed outside Johnson’s congressional office.

Confirmed speakers and award recipients for the gathering Johnson addressed included: a man who proposed that gay people should be forced to wear “a label across their forehead reading, ‘This can be hazardous to your health’ ”; a woman who blamed gay people for Noah’s flood and more recent natural disasters; and various adherents of “dominionist” theology, which holds that the United States should be governed under biblical law by Christians.

“I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here,” Johnson teased the group, unaware that his hosts were streaming video of the event. Johnson informed his audience that God “had been speaking to me” about becoming speaker, communicating “very specifically,” in fact, waking him at night and giving him “plans and procedures.”

[AndyinPA]

Mind-boggling.

[Volkonski]

This appears to be the same bill that he canceled the vote on last Wednesday.

Government Shutdown: Mike Johnson Faces Growing Pressure

https://www.newsweek.com/government-shu ... re-1955836

Johnson's plan, a six-month stopgap funding measure combined with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, is scheduled for a vote Wednesday. The legislation has drawn sharp criticism from within Johnson's own party, making its passage uncertain.

Johnson defended the bill during a Fox News appearance on Wednesday morning saying, "Congress has an immediate obligation to do two very important things. We have to keep the government funded, and we need to make sure that our elections are secure."

[Dr. Ken]

His first plan fails

[zekeb]

It's been months since we've seen just how nutjob this republican congress is. It's refreshing to have the republicans send out a reminder so close to the election.

[Ben-Prime]

His first plan fails

And when questioned by Hannity or whoever, about how he couldn't get every House GOPper to vote for it, he still blames Senate Democrats. And I'm thinking "How is *anyone* in the Senate to blame if you don't pass and send them something?" But that's why I'm merely a federal government worker bee and not a Congresscritter.

[northland10]

The one part nobody bothers to mention is that the SAVE act already passed the House in July. This is all about trying to force the Senate to act.

Oh, and how super-fast needed was this little piece of legislation? Chip Roy introduced it in May.

F**** MAY!!!!

This has not been in the works for a while to help make elections safer. It is nothing but an election-year stunt.

Oh yea, IIRC, this is about showing documents for registration, but one month is not enough time to create regulations and processes.

Still, as a bunch of Republicans have said, Republicans always get blamed for shutdowns. I would have to admit, they're right and it could be really bad for them.

[Suranis]

[neonzx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdTgKarqTQ0

I see that Onion segment is 13 years old yet still fits today.

[MN-Skeptic]

From Politico Playbook -

Playbook: Why Trump wanted a shutdown

When Trump took to social media recently and demanded his party refuse to fund the government until Democrats swallow their nationwide proof-of-citizenship voting bill, Republicans across Capitol Hill privately blanched.

A government shutdown just five weeks before Election Day would be disastrous, the conventional thinking goes, reminding voters of the chaos that has marked GOP governance in the Trump era.

But that, of course, wasn’t Trump’s thinking, according to three Republicans with insight.

The former president had convinced himself that a shutdown over voting laws would usher in a GOP wave, enabling him to not only reclaim the White House but land substantial majorities in Congress.

Trump, after all, had been burned by the 35-day-shutdown over his demands for a border wall at the end of 2018, with voters overwhelmingly blaming him as president for the chaos that ensued. Therefore, he reasoned, JOE BIDEN, Harris and the Democrats would take the heat this time around, since they’re the ones in power.

So if you’re wondering why Speaker MIKE JOHNSON has dragged his feet unveiling his next moves on funding the government — even when everyone and their mother knows what the end result will be — look no further. Johnson has been in a delicate dance with Trump, trying to untangle the ex-president’s beliefs about shutdowns before he bites the bullet and puts up a clean, three-month CR.

Some more at the link above, but I've highlighted what I find astounding.

[RTH10260]

GOP Hearing BACKFIRES in their FACE on Live TV

MeidasTouch
20 Sept 2024

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Democrats taking over a hearing called by MAGA Republicans and calling out their tactics for Donald Trump.

[AndyinPA]

Good jobs!

[p0rtia]

As usual, the Dems own these shit shows.

[MN-Skeptic]

And, to no one's surprise -

Speaker Johnson unveils short-term spending bill, urges members to avoid shutdown

House Speaker Mike Johnson laid out the next plans to avert a government shutdown in a Sunday letter to his members.

Johnson’s plan, known as a limited continuing resolution, would fund the government until December 20 and include $230 million for Secret Service funding.

“Next week the House will take the initiative and pass a clean, three-month CR to prevent the Senate from jamming us with a bill loaded with billions in new spending and unrelated provisions,” the Louisiana Republican wrote in his letter. “Our legislation will be a very narrow, bare-bones CR including only the extensions that are absolutely necessary. While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances.”

Government funding is slated to run out at the end of the month, and Johnson said in his Sunday letter that he does not want a shutdown weeks before the election.

“As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice,” he said. “From now until election day, I will continue with my tireless efforts and singular focus of growing our majority for the 119th Congress.”

[p0rtia]

Another House Hearing on Weaponization of the gov't today. Jumping Jim at the helm.

Topic is FBI handling of whistle blowers and their security clearances, with the accent on FBI attacking Conservative agents (but the Dems pull it instantly to Project 2025).

It's pretty tame, probably because of the witnesses. The main witness is IG Horowitz, who is quite neutral and obviously against a future of loyalty pledges and the firing of the entire FBI. Glen "Justice Matters" Kirchner is there as a guest of the Dems. The third witness is Allan, the whiny FBI agent who considers himself a whistleblower and who was apparently treated very badly by FBI upper management, who have the nerve to call him crazy and out of control. His five minute opening descends into tears and sobs and religious wailings. Okay.

Mostly it's providing Yet Another vehicle for the Dems to revisit many of fuckhead's past and present successes at weaponization. They've got their act refined; it plays a little too obviously as a Harris/Walz advertisement, but hey, I'm for it.

Jasmine Crockett asks if anyone is investigating the domestic terrorism on the part of the gop nominee in Springfield OH. None of the three panelists has an answer. She has her professorial demeanor on today, which fits in well with the more adult tone of the hearing today. She asks Allan if it's wrong to remove FBI agency employees because their politics are different from their bosses. He says it's absolutely wrong (NB: his whole beef is that he was targeted in the FBI for his conservatism). She thanks him and points out the Proj. 2025 plans to remove all employees who do not agree with leadership politics, specifically the conservative agenda. She tacks back to abortion and the plan to prosecute abortion providers. She is so good.

Wasserman-Schultz goes straight to Proj 2025 and it's attack on abortion access and women's health in general. Ends with the P2025 plan to eliminate the Nat'l weather service. On a day when TS Helene is approaching the Fla Coast. Bam.

[Kendra]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/politics ... index.html

House Republicans launched a new line of attack against Zelensky on Wednesday, criticizing his recent visit to a Pennsylvania ammunition plant ahead of key meetings with Biden and other allies as part of his weeklong push in the US to shore up more support for his war effort.

Republicans are claiming that Zelensky’s visit to Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2024 presidential election that is home to a sizable population of people of Ukrainian ancestry, was made to provide political support to Democrats.

Johnson called on Zelensky to fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, for organizing the recent trip to the Pennsylvania manufacturing site.

“The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson wrote Wednesday.

Meanwhile, House Oversight Chair James Comer launched an investigation into Zelensky’s use of a US aircraft to fly to the Pennsylvania facility.

“The Committee seeks to determine whether the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power,” Comer wrote in the letter sent to the White House, the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense on Wednesday.

CNN has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.