Congress Returns in Under a Week

A new survey in Israel shows that 85 percent of the want Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served as prime minister three different times since 1996, to hand over control to someone new when the war ends.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley seems to be “hoisted on her own petard,” continually blowing herself up with her own explosives. Her problem with slavery isn’t going away, the latest problem on an interview with Fox host Harris Faulkner when she told him, “The South is actually very comfortable with our history [of slavery].” She probably meant the whites in the South are comfortable as she repeats her platitude that the government “was never meant to be all things to all people.”

A political party in the U.S. can support a white man’s coup against the nation, but it forces out a Black woman as Harvard president because of her poor citation. Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) is likely a presidential candidate again while Christopher Rufo, inventor of the “anti-woke” movement, drove Claudine Gay out of her job. If Rufo is sincere about being “anti-plagiarism,” his next subject should be Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. In Gorsuch’s book The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, he copied from a 1984 article in the Indiana Law Journal, according to Yale Review author and editor, James Surowiecki.  

In 2017, a Politico article politely explained that Gorsuch “borrowed from the ideas, quotes, and structures of scholarly and legal works without citing them” and “copied the structure and language used by several authors and failed to cite source material in his book and an academic article.” Experts said Gorsuch hid his sources and called his lack of citation “a violation of academic ethics.” The comparisons are here.

In his year-end report for the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Robert wrote nothing about his justices’ ethics problems, instead looking back at technological advancements in the nation’s court system, from the quill pens in the 19^th centuries to the 1980s electronic databases and the online trial proceedings created by the Covid pandemic. He also wrote about artificial intelligence but omitted the adoption of a formal code of conduct to promote “integrity and impartiality,” a move largely considered a failure.

In Above the Law, legal expert Joe Patrice critiqued the year-end report:

“While the federal judiciary in 2023 found itself beset by ethical scandals from top to bottom, jurists abandoning any sense of professionalism and decorum, a forum shopping crisis spawned by the lack of reform to the nationwide injunction procedure, and a criminal defendant openly attacking the judicial process and inspiring violent threats against federal judges, John Roberts addressed none of these.”

Five big oil companies are giving over $100 billion in 2023 to shareholders in addition to the $104 billion in 2022 for dividends and share buybacks after huge profits from increased gas prices. 

DDT’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, indicted with DDT in the Georgia RICO case by Fani Willis, is still begging that his case be moved from a state court to a federal one, this time from the full conservative 11^th Circuit Court. His goal is to get his charges dropped by declaring immunity. Meadows has added Paul Clement, U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration, to his legal team as well as two other members of Clement’s law firm. Last month, a three-judge panel from the circuit court ruled that only currently serving officials can use the removal statute to move their charges.

With at least two government shutdowns scheduled within the next month, Congress can’t even agree on the top-line funding figure. House Republicans are avoiding the passage of appropriations bills with a second impeachment after that of President Joe Biden. Having only a two-vote margin in eight working days, they plan to also impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) plan. Congress has not impeached a Cabinet secretary in almost 150 years, and Secretary of War William Worth Belknap wasn’t convicted. The White House has answered the multiple GOP complaints about problems at the southern border:

“House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.

“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl earlier in 2023, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement.”

On social media, White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt posted:

“President Biden has requested $13.6 billion for border enforcement & migration management, increasing the Border Patrol by 1,300, judge teams by 375 and asylum officers by 1600 to expedite the screening process, and critical drug detection technology.”

On Wednesday, Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson ushered about 60 House Republicans to the southern border for a photo-op and called for the passage of their hardline HR2 in the Senate.  American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick described it as “the indefinite detention of toddlers”; “a federal crime to violate a visa, even unknowingly”; abandoning “every single other law on the books to build, maintain, and operate border infrastructure”; and erasing “99.9% of asylum.” Far-right House members told a Fox reporter about their style of governing: “shut the border down, or we’ll shut the government down. We control the money.”

Stories about Congressional Republicans:

A Pennsylvanian activist has filed a lawsuit to disqualfy Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) under the Insurrection Clause, Section Three of the 14^th Amendment because he pushed conspiracy theories about a stolen presidential election in 2020. The filing also states that Perry “advanced efforts to replace the Attorney General with a Trump loyalist” and was a “leading proponent … to disrupt the transfer of presidential administration from Trump to Biden.” 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has failed—again. After ordering Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Fulton County (GA) DA Fani Willis to send him all the information on their investigations, he issued a demand to D.C. AG Brian Schwalb for information about his investigation. Schwab wrote Jordan and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) that he won’t cooperate with probes into conspiracy theories about far-right judicial activist Leonard Leo, who helped create the Federalist Society and instituted hundreds of radical far-right judges. The investigation concerns Leo’s allegedly using one of his non-profit organizations to help one of his for-profit ventures. Jordan and Comer had given Schwab until November 13 for the scheduling of “a briefing on the status and scope of your investigation.” When Schwab refused, the twosome tried again two weeks ago with the same response. Schwab politely pointed out that Congress doesn’t mess with ongoing investigations.

For LGBTQ+ children, GOP lawmakers believe in “spare the rod, spoil the child” in their opposition to a new rule requiring child welfare agencies to place LGBTQ children in “environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse” based on the child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression is drawing opposition from Republicans. Rep. Jim Banks’ (R-IN) bill would stop foster and adoptive families from a requirement to affirm a transgender child’s gender identity although nothing in the proposed policy deals with “changing the sex of a child,” according to the National LGBTQ Task Force. The purpose is to protect children from abuse and mistreatment. Another bill from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) would allow child welfare service providers to follow their “religious beliefs.”

Republicans are trying to reconcile the assumption that DDT will be the GOP presidential candidate in 2024. The far-right group Club for Growth gave up on its attempt to keep DDT from obtaining the candidacy to no longer attacking him. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) also caved in, becoming the sixth and final member of House GOP leadership to endorse DDT’s candidacy. Ten weeks ago, DDT destroyed the possibility for Emmer to be House Speaker after he had all the votes he needed. Those votes disappeared four hours later when DDT publicly condemned Emmer, concluding with the accusation that the representative is a “Globalist RINO.” Emmer’s sin was that he didn’t vote to overturn the 2020 election.  

To circumvent New York Mayor Eric Adams’ new rules about immigrant busses arriving in the city, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is having them unloaded in New Jersey. At least 13 busses with 450 migrants have been sent from Texas and Louisiana; New York has processed over 161,000 asylum seekers in under two years.  

On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) faces more criminal charges after accusations of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. In the new allegations, Menendez made positive statements about Qatar to help a New Jersey developer get a multimillion-dollar investment from a company tied to the country. Thirty-one senators, including Democrats, have called for his resignation, and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has suggested an expulsion from Congress. At this time, Menendez is running for a fourth term, but he has competition.

Dysfunction – House Speaker, DDT Plus More

Trouble for House Speaker:

Rep. Tom Emmer (MN) was the GOP choice to run for House Speaker—for four hours and ten minutes before he quit, the third person to resign as candidate since eight Republicans dumped Kevin McCarthy (CA) three weeks ago. Now, Mike Johnson (LA), a former radio host, has been chosen for the latest nominee. Emmer may have withdrawn after attacks by Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) who maintains an iron grip on the GOP. Following several ballots among the 221 House Republicans, Emmer managed to get 117 votes, but over two dozen Republicans said they would never vote for him. A candidate for Speaker can afford to lose only four GOP votes. Following the radio host for the position of second in line to be president is Byron McDonalds (R-FL), who hasn’t even served an entire term in the House.

Taxpayers have paid House members $2.2 million for doing nothing for the past three weeks.

With 128 votes of 221 Republicans, Johnson said that he will try for the House floor vote at noon on October 25. Twenty-nine Republicans voted for Donalds, and 44 for “other.” Ken Buck (CO) said that 43 of those votes were for deposed Speaker McCarthy and one for former nominee Jim Jordan (OH). Mark Green (TN) and Roger Williams (TX) were eliminated in the second round. 

In the voting process, the person receiving the fewest votes in the first round was dropped. The Republicans continued voting, dropping one candidate each time. The last person with a majority became the Speaker designate even with votes for others. All the candidates signed the unity pledge to abide by these guidelines and support the nominee for the foot vote. Members, however, didn’t agree, which is why Emmer withdrew his name. Williams is not in the chart because he signed up on the day of voting after another Texan, Pete Sessions was the first Republican to be voted out.

Of the original GOP nine men—eight of them white—running for Speaker, seven of them voted to overturn the election. Six of the finalists are from the South and two from the Midwest.One of them, Dan Meuser (PA), dropped out of the race on Monday. Six of the finalists are from the South and two from the Midwest. Only two of them, Emmer and Austin Scott (GA), didn’t try to overturn the election at the January 6 insurrection, and none of them voted to impeach DDT. These charts show their other positions about providing aid to Ukraine, women’s reproductive rights and protection from violence, government shutdown, etc.

 

Because Democrats voted against him, McCarthy blamed Democrats for the dysfunction in the House when they couldn’t decide on a speaker. Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (R-NY) received 212 votes in the Speaker vote; five GOP votes for Jeffries would solve the problem. The GOP nominee hasn’t yet received more than 200 votes out of the necessary 217. Michelle Cottle wrote about “The People Who Broke the House”—and none of them is a Democrat.

The big struggle in finding a Speaker is that the far-right has declared they want someone who tries to overturn the presidential election, and many of the others—now called moderates because of the way that the far-right has become ultra-radical—won’t agree.

Trouble for DDT:

Usually Sunday is devoted to DDT’s disasters, but October 24 was special: in one day he heard his former lawyer Michael Cohen testify that DDT is a fraud, a former lawyer Jenna Ellis flipping on him in the Georgia RICO case, and his former chief of staff at the White House Mark Meadows agreeing to testify against DDT for immunity.

Michael Cohen: DDT got so upset during the testimony of his former lawyer/fixer that his lawyers had to calm him down in court. In the civil suit about DDT’s business fraud that could cost him $250 million, Cohen first confessed his past crimes while employed by DDT and then testified about how DDT told him to manipulate financial statements to match DDT’s figures, a “reverse engineering,” along with involvement by former CFO of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg and DDT’s children Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka. The company falsified values of DDT’s properties and assets to obtain favorable loan terms and increase DDT’s wealth, according to Cohen. A criminal case by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has also indicted DDT in 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Jenna Ellis: In the RICO case, she became the fourth co-defendant of nineteen to turn over documents and testify in exchange for a plea deal. The defense against co-defendant DDT has just become stronger. After she pled guilty, she tearfully read an apology to the judge, declaring “deep remorse” and admitting she lied about thousands of ballots illegally counted, thousands of felons illegally voting, and thousands of underage people illegally registered in the 2020 election. In the 2016 campaign, Ellis called DDT an “idiot” and an “unethical, corrupt, lying, criminal, dirtbag.” Then he hired her for his legal team to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and she enthusiastically supported him. Now she refers to his “malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”

Mark Meadows:  Granted immunity, he told special counsel Jack Smith and a grand jury under oath that he repeatedly warned DDT that his claims about winning the 2020 presidential election were lies and that DDT was being “dishonest.” Meadows even said that he doesn’t believe some of the statements in his own book. Under penalty of perjury, he refuted other comments he made to right-wing media. Meadows is still a co-defendant in the RICO case. Meadows’ deal to plead guilty to Smith doesn’t save him from the charges in the Georgia RICO case. Smith can’t grant him for immunity in the state case unless the Georgia DA also signs off on the deal.  

Other Bits:

Virginia Republicans have a slim majority in the state House, and Democrats have the narrow majority in the state Senate. Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants majorities in both chambers to promote his provocative policies, especially in a year when he’s considering a run for the White House. The GOP has tried to keep the abortion issue tamped down, but Youngkin has decided to use the subject for the state legislature election on November 7, 2023.

Democrats opposes the GOP proposed 15-week ban, and Youngkin has brought it out in the open with his lie that Democrats are such extremists that they have no restrictions. He also states that the Republicans have no “bans”; they just want a “reasonable 15-week restriction.” Youngkin’s PAC has a 30-second commercial accusing Democrats of “disinformation,” falsely claiming that “there is no ban.” Democrats say that the GOP has changed from the 20-week ban that the party has pushed in previous years.

Steve Benen points out the type of “rebranding” attempted by Republicans. They don’t want bans, just restrictions. Privatizing education with school voucher schemes are only “school choices.” And the GOP doesn’t want to privatize Social Security; they just want “private personal accounts.”

Nobody ever accused of Rep. George Santos (R-NY), facing indictments with 23 charges, of not being inventive. The latest one is that his five-year-old niece may have been kidnapped by Chinese Communists for 40 minutes trying to silence his harsh line against China. A police investigation reported, “We found nothing at all to suggest it’s true.”

House Oversight Committee James Comer (R-KY) decided he has proof of President Joe Biden’s accepting bribes because his bank account shows a $200,000 deposit in 2018. The probe found that Joe Biden’s brother James paid him back for a loan. The check states “Loan repayment.” The latest accusation shows how desperate Comer is.

Far-right billionaire Peter Thiel, who bankrolled GOP senatorial races for failed Blake Masters (AZ) and winning J.D. Vance (OH), has been outed as an FBI informant, according to alt-right activist Charles Johnson and FBI informant. Johnson thinks that Thiel is primarily informing on foreign governments’ attempts to be involved with Silicon Valley tech companies. He was told not to inform on DDT or other U.S. political figures. Thiel paid $1.25 million to elect DDT in 2016 and then served on his transition team. After Vance received $10 million from Thiel, he attacked the FBI, falsely accusing agents of wiretapping his phone. Masters got $15 million.

The RNC has struggled to find problems with President Joe Biden since he became president, usually looking foolish. The latest criticism of him as a president is that he’s not on the front line in Israel attacking Hamas. Instead, he’s on the beach for a short walk after he got home from the Middle East to coordinate with Israeli leaders. Someone needs to tell Republicans that presidents don’t personally participate in elite hostage-rescue operations—no photographs of Ronald Reagan or DDT pulling a pin on a live grenade to throw through a window. Fox who showed the image of Biden on the beach also explained the calls and decisions he made that morning. Biden told Israel he appreciated help for releasing two U.S. hostages and talked with his national security team, Pope Francis, and leaders of Germany, France, Italy, UK, and Canada. [Imagine if DDT had taken time out of his White House schedule to play golf?]