Veterans Day – A Tale of Two Parties

Today was Veterans Day, enshrined 85 years ago as a national holiday to honor U.S. veterans of the armed services and those killed in the country’s wars. Just as the United States has two major political parties, it has two ways of commemorating this annual event.

Democrats:

The Biden administration made all of the living 119,500 World War II veterans eligible for no-cost VA healthcare and nursing home services. Family members of veterans serving at Camp Lejeune are also covered for the cost of Parkinson’s care; as many as one million people at the Navy base could have been sickened by industrial solvents in contaminated groundwater from dumps by the government and an off-base dry cleaner.

In another announcement, a new graduate medical education program will fund salaries of 100 doctors, expanding healthcare in historically underserved communities along with an advertising campaign to reach veterans not using VA. The Democratic administration created a Veteran Scam and Fraud Evasion task force after 93,000 claims were submitted last year. In addition to education, the directive designates the Federal Trade Commission to coordinate these reports.

The government will also provide community-based organizations with $105 million in grants for programs in suicide and $1 billion to fund assistance for homeless veterans. Increased healthcare benefits to veterans include $163 billion in 2023 to help more than 6 million veterans and survivors while the government processes nearly 2 million disability claims.

Republicans:

On the other side of honoring Veterans Day, Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson sent the House home for the second long weekend since he assumed the position three weeks ago. Johnson reportedly needed the three-day weekend to speak to the misnamed Worldwide Freedom Initiative (WFI)—in Paris—although his spokesman said he didn’t attend. He was scheduled to share the podium with Éric Zemmour, failed neofascist Presidential candidate (7 percent of the vote), another far-right failed candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, and well-known Holocaust denier Florian Philippot. Johnson did deliver the keynote speech at the group’s launch last summer on the 4^th of July. Other attendees from the U.S. include Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) and her paramour/former campaign manager for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), Corey Lewandowski. A spokeswoman for the far-right Moms for Liberty (M4) will be speaking.

Shortly after noon on Saturday, Johnson told Republicans they would be voting on his two-step government funding stopgap bill next Tuesday after GOP’s mandatory 72-hour waiting period. This specific idea to postpone a government shutdown on Friday came from the Freedom Caucus. Johnson likely thinks he can batter the “moderate” Republicans into submission as he did to get the unanimous GOP vote to become Speaker. Even if he manages this unlikely step, the Senate is more of a problem. According to Johnson, some funding runs out on January 19 and the remainder on February 2, two fiscal cliffs instead of one.

The first deadline is for government programs and agencies covered by regular appropriation bills: agriculture, rural development, and Food and Drug Administration; energy and water development; military construction and Veterans Affairs; and Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development. Funding for all others would expire on February 2. The bill would extend the Farm Bill’s provisions until September 30, 2024, the expiration of the budget that Congress should be developing, adding a one-year extension for the bill that passed in 2018. The CR has no budget cuts or additional major conservative policy riders in opposition to Republicans wanting to tie their beliefs to the bill.

Johnson said his plan puts “House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories.” He wants to avoid “massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess.” Missing is everything from GOP wish lists such as restrict border control, IRS defunding, and Israel aid as well as assistance for Ukraine.

Although the Freedom Caucus thought up and supported the approach, conservative Chip Roy (R-TX) already posted his opposition to Johnson’s bill, and Johnson can afford to lose only four GOP votes for the bill’s passage. Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), House Budget Committee chair, told reporters that the staggered plan was “politically DOA,” because it did not have Democratic support although conservative Republicans want a majority vote from their own party. 

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee chair and third in line to be president as Senate pro tempore, called the staggered funding plan “the craziest, stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.”White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre gave the Biden response:

“This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns—full stop. With just days left before an Extreme Republican Shutdown—and after shutting down Congress for three weeks after they ousted their own leader—House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties.

“An Extreme Republican Shutdown would put critical national security and domestic priorities at risk, including by forcing service members to work without pay. This comes just days after House Republicans were forced to pull two of their own extreme appropriations bills from the floor—further deepening their dysfunction.”

The only time the “laddered approach” came over 30 years ago when pro-Israel congressional members wanted to give a loan of $10 billion to Israel, and George H.W. Bush threatened to veto the fiscal 1992 Foreign Operations bill if that were an amendment. He was concerned that Israelis would build settlements in disputed territory—which they consistently have for the past three decades—and wished to wait for peace talks in Madrid. Congress then agreed to delay the deadline for only that bill through March while talks were ongoing. The gambit failed, and Congress enacted a CR covering foreign aid spending with September 30, 1992, the end of the fiscal year, as the deadline. Bush finally agreed, and the loan was put into the final fiscal 1993 Foreign Operations bill.

While the House members went home, a bipartisan group of senators worked throughout the weekend for a workable deal on asylum policy changes in processing migrants to reduce crossings on the southern border. The compromise is intended to be part of Biden’s national security funding package to also include aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

More revelations about Johnson:

The Speaker is part of the movement to rewrite Constitution to force the Tea Party vision onto government. Goals include elimination of regulatory agencies such as the FDA and CDC, ability to borrow money, federal law for states.

Outside Johnson’s office hangs the flag of the far-right New Apostolic Reformation, a group determined to turn the U.S. into a religious nation. White with an evergreen tree in the center, it is emblazoned with the phrase “An Appeal to Heaven.” Once a naval flag for the colony of Massachusetts, it is now a symbol of aggressive Christian nationalism warfare.  

Johnson says the Bible—not the Constitution—is his worldview, but he trusts David Barton to translate it for him. For almost four decades, revisionist historian Barton has led people in the lie that separation between church and state is a myth. Gloating about Johnson’s election as Speaker, Barton says, “We have some tools at our disposal now (that) we haven’t had in a long time,” Barton added. Recently, Johnson spoke to Barton’s group Wallbuilders, praising Barton and his “profound influence on me, and my work, and my life and everything I do.”

Barton lies about Founding Fathers being “orthodox, evangelical” Christians: they were deists. He claims that the First Amendment’s use of the word religion is a stand-in for “Christian denomination” and was never intended to represent the promotion of “a pluralism of other religions.” All society’s ills from school shootings to divorce and LGBTQ+ people come from abandoning Judeo-Christian virtues in his view of Christianity, according to Barton, and the lack of cure for AIDS was God’s vengeance for homosexuality. His 2012 book The Jefferson Lies led to Christian academics writing a book to debunk all his inaccuracies and was pulled by its Christian publisher because “the basic truths just were not there.” Barton’s beliefs are part of recent Supreme Court rulings embedding Christianity into politics, and he was instrumental in trying to overturn the 2020 election with the brief that Johnson coerced 126 House Republicans to sign, supporting Texas AG Ken Paxton’s lawsuit thrown out of the Supreme Court.  

As an extremist evangelical, Johnson subscribes to the view that they must convert Jews to fundamentalist Christianity to avoid eternal damnation.

Remarkable about the Speaker’s “leadership” is the lack of order from the magnitude of shouting and insults now prevalent on the chamber’s floor.  

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) honored veterans on November 9, Alabama’s Military Day, by denying all 364 nominated military appointments. He had said he would allow some of them to be considered individually, but he rejected all of them when Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) read their individual names on the Senate floor. After Tuberville tried to blame Democrats for forcing him to block the promotions, Kaine pointed out that Tuberville didn’t even try to argue for his policy changes on the Senate floor. At one point, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), while facilitating part of the reading of names, broke into laughter. Tuberville refused to admit that he was punishing people who had no responsibility for the policy he protested.

The day before his performance with the military nominations, Al Weaver, journalist for The Hill, posted an exchange he had with Tuberville about the overwhelming rejection of anti-abortion positions on November 7, 2023. Asked for his reaction, Tuberville said, “I don’t keep up with that,” adding that he did read about the “big game” between Auburn University, where he coached football team, and the University of Arkansas.

The Ungovernable Party Plays Games

[Breaking News: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who typically supported the Republicans, won’t run for reelection in 2024 but hasn’t ruled out a presidential run. He said he would travel the country “to bring Americans together,” something he failed to do while in the Senate. Spoiler group No Labels has been wooing the 76-year-old as a presidential candidate. Green Party’s Jill Stein, spoiler for Hillary Clinton in 2016, has announced another presidential run.]

A Shutdown?

At Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate, Vivek Ramaswamy called the Republicans “a party of losers,” and the House, under new Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson, is working hard to prove Ramaswamy right. For the second time in two days, the GOP pulled another appropriation bill required to avoid a government shutdown without a continuing resolution for the budget, due last September. That makes a total of three pulled bills since Johnson became Speaker under three weeks ago. House Republicans have approved only seven of the 12 full-year spending measures individually.

Tuesday, Republicans canceled votes on the Transportation-HUD bill because coastal Republicans opposed cuts to Amtrak. Thursday, they postponed the Financial Services and General Government measure which included prohibiting Washington, D.C. from blocking employer discrimination based on their reproductive health decisions.

One House Republicans complained about “ungovernable” divisions, and conservative Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who thought the Speaker’s “honeymoon” might last for 30 days, says it’s “shorter than we thought.” Johnson has had several meetings with conservative GOP senators about a staggered bill for a continuing resolution to the budget problem, but he’ll have to persuade all Republicans and another 11 Democrats to pass his bill in the Senate. In addition, He needs a CR strategy by tomorrow to comply with the 72-hour rule, giving House members the weekend to read the legislation before next week. The House closed for the weekend on Thursday afternoon.

Like the Financial Services measure, several appropriation bills have anti-abortion provisions, shown in the Tuesday elections to be unpopular. The amendments make the bills highly unlikely to move forward in the Senate even if they do pass the House, especially in the remaining eight days before the government shutdown.

Some of the amendments demonstrate way that their sponsors and supporters look at governing as a game, not a serious attempt to help the United States. The House majority number reinstated the “Holman Rule,” allowing them to try to slash specific salaries of federal officials on spending bills. Earlier this year, they tried to cut almost the entire salaries for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin salary and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. And Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.

An amendment by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) to reduce White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s salary to $1 got 165 GOP votes. Democrats were joined by 54 Republicans to vote it down. False accusations included Jean-Pierre’s “lies,” her “condescending manner toward reporters,” and her violating the Hatch Act. Republicans were the ones who did that during DDT’s time in the White House as they illegally used their official positions to campaign for DDT and other Republicans. Tenney has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ statements: Jean-Pierre and her wife have a daughter. Last year, Tenney released a photo of Paul Pelosi, the former Speaker’s husband, falsely insinuating he was beaten because he was gay with the message “LOL.”

Over 100 House Republicans, 106 of them, voted for Rep. Mike Collins’ (R-GA) to completely defund VP Kamala Harris’ office.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) amendment to drop the salary of Transportation Department’s secretary, Pete Buttigieg, to $1 passed with a voice vote. One of her complaints was that he received awards “for the way people have sex.”

Infuriating conservatives, Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) proposed Financial Services amendment barring funding for the FBI headquarters in Maryland failed by 145 to 273 votes with one Democrat voting yes. Spending time on these frivolous attempts to pass their culture wishes by putting them on appropriation bills has wasted a great deal of time.

In another argument about appropriation bills, Rep. John Ragan (R-TN) wants to block federal funds to feed school children from low-income families without evidence that the program increases test scores. He failed to answer a question about whether feeding low-income children is in itself good but instead changed the topic to data about academic improvement to avoid waste.

Using the argument that “we gotta cut something,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) urged the House to save $505 million by cutting the only federal program providing housing funding for people living with HIV/AIDS. He added that “we don’t have programs for everybody that gets a disease.” Last year, HUD determined that stable housing “reduced transmission of the disease.”

In a debate with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Boebert appeared confused when he tried to explain to her that she couldn’t strip funds from a bill that doesn’t cover what she wants to remove. Even his thorough explanation didn’t clarify the issue for Boebert; she asked him to vote for her amendment.

Both House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer (D-NY) call for a bipartisan “clean” stopgap bill “as quickly as possible. The Senate has passed only three of the 12 funding bills, and they are far different that the ones coming out of the House which also have huge cuts to the agencies. Republicans claim they are concerned about the cost of government, but closing the government costs billions of dollars. 

Johnson’s preferred approach is a “laddered” CR with two temporary funding packages, one ending in early December and the other in mid-January. The first would include four less controversial funding bills and the other the remaining eight. The Freedom Caucus, creating the proposal, like the idea—the other Republicans, not so much. Conservative Chip Roy (R-TX) said the laddered idea was a way “to force the Senate” to negotiate separate appropriation bills instead of an end-of-year combined bill. It would extend the deadline for each of the 12 individual appropriations bills, rather than the budget as a whole, Johnson said. One senior GOP aide joked that it would have a dozen fiscal cliffs instead of just one. Sort of like a family going without food for a while, then shelter, and clothing, etc.

On Wednesday, Johnson said he would decide which path the House would take, evidently leaving the other 220 GOP members out of the decision. Any choice Johnson makes will require all except four Republicans for support because of his rule that all bills must have the majority of Republicans. Any bill the Freedom Caucus approves will be poison to the majority in the Senate.

Wasting more time, Greene is forcing a vote on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The privileged resolution, guaranteed a floor vote, alleges he has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” by failing to maintain operational control of the border. Two of her constituents died in a car accident with a car supposedly carrying smuggled migrants fleeing police in Batesville (TX). Since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, U.S. border agents arrested over 5 million migrants trying to cross the border outside controlled stations.

Several of Greene’s GOP colleagues are embarrassed by her behavior, according to a Daily Beast article earlier this week. The feeling has only worsened since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) ouster because of their closeness. Greene has been kicked out of the far-right Freedom Caucus after her attacks on Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), still a member, and her support of McCarthy’s raising the debt ceiling. Her frequent derision of other conservative House members produced hostility toward her and a lack of trust in her.

Government agencies are preparing for a shutdown: the White House’s top budget office told agencies to make plans for a major interruption with millions of civilian workers and military personnel sent home or forced to work without pay after November 17. Before boarding Air Force One on Thursday, Biden beseeched the House to “just get to work.” He added:

“The idea we’re playing games with a shutdown at this moment is just bizarre.”

A shutdown would close most federal health-care, education, science, research and labor programs, damaging the economy—perhaps what Republicans want in order to improve their election chances. Low-income could face crises as programs providing childcare, nutrition assistance, college financial aid, and housing support use up their reserves. Two million federal workers will have their pay interrupted while some of “essential employees” such as bag inspection agents at airports, will be forced to work without wages. The 1.3 million active-duty troops will also receive no pay. The current House disaster also blocks assistance for both Israel and Ukraine.

A few more election results:

Michigan: Democrats are now tied with Republicans in the state House after two members won mayoral races. Special elections for their replacement will not be for months. In the Senate, Democrats keep their two member majority. 

New Hampshire: Democrat Paige Beauchemin’s special election win for the House brought the GOP advantage to only one seat.

Derby (CT): Although GOP Gino DiGiovanni Jr. faces six criminal charges for the January 6 insurrection, he got 44 percent of the mayoral vote in this town of 12,000.