Originally published at: It’s Looking Like Even The Smallest Crack In The Ranks Could Paralyze The Incoming House GOP
House Freedom Caucus member Tim Burchett (R-TN) gave an interview on Wednesday that is likely to give House Republican leadership heartburn. Burchett is a member of the notoriously rebellious caucus whose antics have helped render House Republicans’ slim majority the past two years extremely dysfunctional at best, and, more often, simply paralyzed. He is known…
1 Like
I’m probably being naive, but I wonder why we Dems can’t persuade 2,3 Rs to switch parties or at least vote with our guys or abstain.
10 Likes
his morals will be guiding his votes
His? What about his district?
Burchett, like all Republicans, believes he now knows what’s best for everybody – before he was elected, somebody else thought he knew best for Burchett. Burchett didn’t like that, so he ran propaganda to lie himself into the House.
Representative, my ass. Every Republican is a wannabe dictator.
14 Likes
If only a couple of them would come down with something on the day the speaker is chosen!
12 Likes
And the day after, and the day after, and the day after…
4 Likes
Suspect of shooting the UHC CEO looks like a white guy, must have been someone that lost a loved one because UHC refused to cover treatment and he decided to apply 2nd amendment solutions.
13 Likes
House Freedom Caucus member Tim Burchett (R-TN) gave an interview on Wednesday that is likely to give House Republican leadership heartburn.
… … … … …
Heartburn? Good
6 Likes
The person who was just elected in my district, Mike Baumgartner, went to high school with me. I remember him, because he was an attractive young man, and because he never bullied me.
Perhaps this memory, this kind memory of mine, will be enough for me to reach out to him, to call his office, to not come off as overly hostile, like I couldn’t help myself whenever I talked to Cathy McMorris Rogers’ office.
But perhaps he’s another one we’ve lost to MAGA. It’s really hard to tell when their pretending.
11 Likes
Pays to be careful buying your morning coffee at Starbucks. Ya never know who the next customer might be.
5 Likes
Much of politics is pretending what one’s values are.
8 Likes
So much for Trump’s hubris about getting a “landslide” win. That, and 25 cents, won’t . . .
Any GOP rep who won a marginal victory in a swing state must be looking forward to a very stressful two years.
12 Likes
Humiliating Johnson is just fun, and boastful preening is what magats do, but when Trump is in, will there be any Rs in House who would defy Trump, let alone occasionally vote w Ds? Even 1, let alone 3?
5 Likes
“Democrats need to organize their future politics around the simple reality that the establishment media is structural hostile to the Democratic Party. This doesn’t mean every journalist individually, of course. But the establishment media generally — the Times, the Post, the Journal, CNN and the business news channels, all of them,”
Thank you, Josh. The Dem leadership is pretty thick-headed: I hope they hear you.
15 Likes
Have a belt of Jack Daniels for that “slightest crack”.
2 Likes
Am I a bad person to read this story and smile so hard my face cracks?
3 Likes
Jeffries shouldn’t try to put the pin back in the grenade, let the GQP destroy itself and fail to pass anything at all.
Sigh. Unfortunately we can’t do that, as the terrorists are more than willing to kill the hostages (or, in this case, shut the government down due to lack of funding on 12/20/2024). They’ve got 2 weeks to do something, will flail haplessly about, then 180 dems plus a handful of GQP critters will pass something to keep the lights on.
It’s almost worth letting it all burn down to prove a point that elections have consequences, but the people it hurts most are the ones that least deserve it (i.e. anyone who has to work despite not getting paid)
4 Likes
From one of Empty Wheel’s posters:
“This is a clear example of the double standard Dems are held to by the mainstream “liberal” media. Bush lied over and over when he claimed to have been “out of the loop” on Iran Contra. When Dan Rather had the nerve to ask him about it Bush, coached by Roger Ailes, deflected the question by attacking Rather rather than admit his bald-faced lies. The media was impressed by Bush’s clever tactics and never demanded he admit he was involved in that blatantly unconstitutional conspiracy. This is the same media who crucified Bill Clinton for cheating on his wife.
Bush’s diary of all those Iran Contra meetings Bush said he never attended was almost certainly going to be used as evidence in SecDef Weinberger’s trial which not only would have exposed Bush’s lies but may have put Bush himself in legal jeopardy.
There is good evidence that Bush’s national security adviser and good friend from Bush’s CIA Director days, Donald Gregg, was deeply involved in (running?) the illegal supplying of arms to the Contras. The man in charge, Felix Rodriguez, was well known to Gregg who had been Rodriguez’s CIA handler. Rodriguez had contacts with Gregg during the Contra operation.
Iran Contra was a blatantly illegal and unconstitutional secret operation yet the media has cared far less about Bush’s shutting down the investigation and trials with his pardons. The Independent Counsel, Republican Lawrence Walsh, was so outraged he accused Bush of “completing the coverup”.
As for Barr’s role the pardons weren’t his idea. Bush wanted to pardon at least Weinberger. Barr supported that but urged Bush to pardon everyone. Bush was never “the man of great principles” the media makes him out to be.”
This supports Josh’s thesis. How Barr got to be Attorney General again, after staging the legal coverup of Iran-Contra, is another critical event.
15 Likes
I mean, how much are we talking about here? Lump sum, or an annuity? It’ll have to go through one of my wife’s companies.
4 Likes
And what are the reasons the establishment media is biased against the Dems? Is it all about money and outrageous behavior = clickbait? Now there are billionaire owners; but I don’t know that there were during Bush’s admin.
5 Likes
They won’t vote with “our guys”–because they’re cowards–but some of them (especially the ones facing reelection challenges in 2026 or '28) might find it convenient to be “unavoidably delayed at home” when contentious votes come up.
Nope. Some are grifters, some are cowards. We can use both categories to divide them.
“'Cause Omar can back tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.”
Yeppers. Tie Trump around their ankles and throw 'em overboard.
As above: they’ll arrange to be “unavoidably detained at home in my district.”
That’s why we can’t burn it down. We have defeat them–“by any means necessary”–without it blowing back upon the poor and vulnerable.
Sarah Kendzior–an indispensible, if incredibly pessimistic Substack read–has a take on this, and it’s pretty fucking chilling (tl;dr: it’s already lost to us, Biden was a placeholder, the oligarchs are far more in control of almost all wings of American politics).
That’s your answer. The oligarchs own them. Jeff Bezos and his ilk will absolutely sell out democracy–and the planet–to maintain their delusions of Olympian power.
11 Likes