The Johnson - Schumer Congress Thread

[Edge-]

Republican Nancy Mace's Kevin McCarthy Roast Leaves D.C. Crowd In Shock

The fundraising dinner was billed as an evening of “lighthearted quips,” but Mace’s digs were anything but. And she managed to bash House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and ex-President Donald Trump in the same one-liner about McCarthy’s contortions to win the speakership last month.

“I haven’t seen someone assume that many positions to appease the crazy Republicans since Stormy Daniels,” said Mace, referring to the adult film actor who accused Trump of having an affair with her in 2006.

Mace later made a jab at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who she recently branded a “fraud.” Gaetz helped lead Freedom Caucus radicals who opposed McCarthy’s speakership until he promised concessions.

“Well, let’s be honest. We all knew that Matt Gaetz would never let the vote get to 18,” said Mace. The joke about Gaetz’s alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old drew shocked reactions from the crowd.

"I do have a message for Matt this evening. He really, really wanted to be here tonight, but he couldn’t find a babysitter — to be his date, I mean. Come on.”

--------

Difficult to not admire her wit.

Honestly, the Stormy Daniels joke is kinda funny. The Gaetz ones are very well trodden territory, but I'll give her credit for the Daniels joke.

But hey, I liked Warnock's jab at Biden's white-guy rhythm.

- - - Updated - - -

https://thehill.com/policy/transport...west-meltdown/

Senate Republicans pushed back on the prospect of stricter airline rules during a Thursday hearing on the Southwest Airlines meltdown that impacted more than 2 million travelers over the holidays.

In the wake of Southwest’s cancellations, Democrats want to pass legislation to bolster air traveler protections and further empower the Department of Transportation to penalize airlines that book flights they cannot staff.

But Republicans argued Thursday that consumers should be left to decide whether they want to fly with Southwest, indicating that the mass cancellations may not lead to bipartisan legislation from Congress.

“Instead of rushing to regulate prices and how many drink coupons you can get, the Biden Department of Transportation should instead let the flying public vote with their feet,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the ranking member on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

In light of airlines continuing to be awful, charging people outrageous fees, providing less and less for the price of an increasingly expensive ticket, losing your luggage on the regular and asking you to not track it via your own airtags so that they can pretend it's actually lost forever, and cancelling flights without providing refunds to passengers, Democrats are proposing new rules to protect consumers from being fucked by airlines.

The legislation proposed by Democrats so far is fairly minimal, but it seems Republicans don't want to even entertain the notion.

Once again, a reminder of where Republicans stand on issues of corporate greed vs. consumer rights and protections. They will always side with corporations and against consumer protections. They consistently have, and they continue to.

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kek

Real though, I know she said something about her outfit having something to do with the balloon and shit but it's impossible to shake the vibes that it's just very bad, low-effort Hunger Games cosplay.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Bro, Raskin is really making a name for himself, going HARD after Republican lies.

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1623695380033536001

This dude's gonna be the next Pelosi.

[Gorsameth]

Bro, Raskin is really making a name for himself, going HARD after Republican lies.

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1623695380033536001

This dude's gonna be the next Pelosi.

I imagine being confronted by your own mortality has a way of kicking you in the butt to do something meaningful with your life.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Moskowitz absolutely demolishing the Republican narrative

https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/...44562403291136

As a bonus:



2023-2024 congress is proving to be the biggest clown show in a century.

[Edge-]

As a bonus:



2023-2024 congress is proving to be the biggest clown show in a century.

Just in case anyone was wondering about this

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...-medicare-fra/

Yes, he oversaw the largest medicare fraud in the nations history - at the time - while he was CEO of Columbia/HCA, and the company was fined $1.7B.

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...ic-party-ad-s/

And yes, he did plead the Fifth 75 times in deposition. Politifact points out this was only during deposition for a civil case, not the federal fraud case. Connecting the two is a bit misleading, but it's technically accurate.

The bottom text too, if we're being nitpicky, isn't accurate. He doesn't want it to, but he wants to create the circumstances that allow for the existing political gridlock to effectively achieve. While also like, you know, functionally repealing countless laws that Congress wouldn't have time to review and making it night impossible to get any current or new business done because all their time would be spent reviewing past legislation and debating and voting on it.

Scott is still a fucking anarchist, more or less.

[Breccia]

The bottom text too, if we're being nitpicky, isn't accurate.

We'll disagree on that, but I'm not going to nitpick a nitpick and leave it at semantics.

Yes, he's an anarchist who wants the world to burn the second we turn off the water. The good news is he can propose anything and it doesn't matter, nothing gets out of the House and Senate without a 98%+ passing grade for two years.

[Gestopft]

Congress would be spending their entire time just reapproving previous legislation and have absolutely no time to even get anything new done.

Which is the entire point. It's the same with their approach to regulation. They want to make sure nothing gets done and gumming up the works is the perfect way to do it. Then they can point to the utter dysfunction and say "see? we TOLD you government sucks."

[beanman12345]

Well Santos got some competition on biggest fraud freshman congressional member. Move over, we got a new challenger in Anna Paulina Luna. Yup, she lied about her finances, heritage, even got her mom to get in on the lie.

https://www.rawstory.com/anna-luna-b..._section_start

Looks like she voted for Hillary too.....

[Edge-]

https://www.newsweek.com/jim-jordans...-1780263?amp=1

Hey, remember that time Kevin McCarthy accidentally admitted that the 8 Benghazi hearings were, in fact, largely designed to hurt Hillary Clinton's political career?

Raskin then cited remarks that Jordan made during a Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas, in August when the Republican said that more should be known about the "political nature of the Department of Justice" and cited the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Jordan mentioned other subjects that he thought should be looked into, including issues related to the U.S. border and the accidental leak of confidential taxpayer data by the IRS.

"All those things need to be investigated just so you have the truth," Jordan said. "Plus that will frame up the 2024 race when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure that he wins."

This was Gym Jordan, the guy heading up the "committee investigating the weaponization of the DoJ/whatever", admitting publicly that the intent of these types of investigations isn't to find the truth, but to set up the Republican party for 2024 and, hilariously, Donald Trump up for a win.

Weird that Republicans continue publicly admitting that they're not interested in governance or anything, just political power for the sake of power.

- - - Updated - - -

Well Santos got some competition on biggest fraud freshman congressional member. Move over, we got a new challenger in Anna Paulina Luna. Yup, she lied about her finances, heritage, even got her mom to get in on the lie.

https://www.rawstory.com/anna-luna-b..._section_start

Boy, how many of these Republicans elected to the House are going to end up being "CRISIS ACTORS" who lied about themselves?

Who thinks that Republicans will do anything about them, even if ethics investigations recommend expulsion?

WHO ARE THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO DENY THE WILL OF THE VOTERS WHO ELECTED THESE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS AND WERE LIED TO?!

And here they complain about hollywood and actors and shit. It seems like the Republican caucus has a growing membership of literal actors playing fictional characters.

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https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mccon...licans-1780383

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the idea of "sunsetting" Social Security and Medicare in an interview on Thursday where he also appeared to take aim at Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida.

A plan released by Scott last year that would see all federal legislation subject to reauthorization by Congress every five years has been the subject of scrutiny after President Joe Biden referred to it in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Biden accused Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare, which Republicans including Scott have strongly denied, but McConnell appeared to suggest Scott's plan would affect those programs.

Other prominent Republicans have also expressed support for cuts to Medicare and Social Security, including Senators Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham and Ron Johnson.

The White House Twitter account on Wednesday shared a thread naming GOP lawmakers who have threatened to cut the programs.

Speaking on The Terry Meiners Show, McConnell was asked about Scott's proposals and Biden's claims that Republicans "want to sunset Social Security and Medicare. So is that true?"

"Unfortunately, that was the Scott plan; that's not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan," McConnell said. "The Republican plan, as I pointed out last fall, if we were to become the majority, there were no plans to raise taxes on...the American people or to sunset Medicare or Social Security."

"So it's clearly the Rick Scott plan, it is not the Republican plan," McConnell continued. "And that's the view of the speaker of the House, as well."

Meiners said that Scott "is out saying that's not his plan at all" and asked McConnell about the "Republican answer" on Medicare.

McConnell pointed to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, saying McCarthy has said "Social Security and Medicare are not to be touched, and I've said the same, and I think we're in a more authoritative position to state what the position of the party is than any single senator."

Meiners suggested to McConnell that Scott wasn't yet "back in the fold" after he ran against McConnell for the GOP Senate leadership.

"Well, this doesn't have anything to do with that," McConnell said. "It's just a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own re-election in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America."

Rick Scott, in his attempts to run in front of the bus because he doesn't like how Mitch McConnell is driving it, is getting run over the bus driven by Mitch McConnell.

McConnell isn't haven't his stupid fucking shit, rofl.

It would be more funny if Republicans weren't continually proposing such actually dangerous legislation and didn't require an anthropomorphic turtle responsible for ratfucking the federal Judiciary to stop even more extremism from his party.

[Breccia]

Rick Scott, in his attempts to run in front of the bus because he doesn't like how Mitch McConnell is driving it, is getting run over the bus driven by Mitch McConnell.

I'm starting to wonder if McConnell snipped the brake line November 2022.

[Edge-]

I'm starting to wonder if McConnell snipped the brake line November 2022.

In this analogy I believe that would be the upstarts like Scott, Lee, and Hawley (and Rubio and Cruz, I'm wondering when their payback is coming or if they'll avoid it somehow) would have been the ones that cut the brake line in their attempts to unseat McConnell. Only to find themselves being the ones run over as they fall off from the undercarriage and become human speedbumps.

[Myradin]

This was Gym Jordan, the guy heading up the "committee investigating the weaponization of the DoJ/whatever", admitting publicly that the intent of these types of investigations isn't to find the truth, but to set up the Republican party for 2024 and, hilariously, Donald Trump up for a win.

Weird that Republicans continue publicly admitting that they're not interested in governance or anything, just political power for the sake of power.

So he's openly weaponizing his position to go after what he claims is the weaponization of the DOJ?

How typically republican to accuse the other side of doing something that they are in fact the ones doing.

[Edge-]

So he's openly weaponizing his position to go after what he claims is the weaponization of the DOJ?

How typically republican to accuse the other side of doing something that they are in fact the ones doing.

I mean yes, but we all knew that from the moment they started discussing said committee.

This is just another example of Republican politicians accidentally being honest in public for a hot-second.

[CastletonSnob]

George Santos stole puppies from Amish dog breeders.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/georg...b022eb3e2ec9e0

Santos has reached "80s pro wrestling heel" levels of cartoonishly evil.

[Breccia]

Santos has reached "80s pro wrestling heel" levels of cartoonishly evil.

I get the idea that, if your checkbook is stolen, the missing checks are blocked or cancelled. Totally understandable.

But you don't get to keep the items you "paid for" for free. You get another check, or you pay cash, or you return the items.

Seriously what got into the minds of the Republican Party that they can expect to acquire and keep things from a loan they never expect to pay back?

[Paranoid Android]

Once more; Where to post this?

"So much for bias against right-wing on Twitter" -- AOC guides Navaroli through explanation how Trump violated Twitter's policies and then Twitter changed its policies to accommodate him

In short when Trump tweeted basically about the squad and tweeted "Go back where you came from" which is a direct violation of Twitter rules, and the lady in the video was overruled by her superior that Trump gets a pass. The day later, Twitter changed it's policies to give Trump a pass.

AOC went off and once more showed that Twitter gave passes to Trump and conservatives all the time. Yet we never heard this.

Posting in here cause this is current hearings and I guess this is mainly about before Elon, even though he has complete bias.

[postman1782]

Once more; Where to post this?

"So much for bias against right-wing on Twitter" -- AOC guides Navaroli through explanation how Trump violated Twitter's policies and then Twitter changed its policies to accommodate him

In short when Trump tweeted basically about the squad and tweeted "Go back where you came from" which is a direct violation of Twitter rules, and the lady in the video was overruled by her superior that Trump gets a pass. The day later, Twitter changed it's policies to give Trump a pass.

AOC went off and once more showed that Twitter gave passes to Trump and conservatives all the time. Yet we never heard this.

Posting in here cause this is current hearings and I guess this is mainly about before Elon, even though he has complete bias.

Yep, these hearings aren't going the way Republicans wanted.

[Kaleredar]

Yep, these hearings aren't going the way Republicans wanted.

Come now, when did little things like "facts" and "overwhelming evidence to the contrary" ever stop republicans from spewing nonsense?

[Edge-]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2280417.html

Remember how Matt Gaetz made a big stink about having the Pledge of Allegiance recited before meetings of the House Judiciary Committee? Well...

Republican US Rep Matt Gaetz apologised for the “unintended consequences” after inviting a man accused of murder to lead the Pledge of Allegiance during a committee hearing this month.

The Florida congressman had invited Corey Beekman, a US Army National Guard combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient, to recite the pledge during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on 1 February, bringing up old wounds for the family of the man Mr Beekman was accused of killing.

Who could have ever thought that empty virtue signaling might actually end up blowing up in your face a bit.

Michigan’s Mason County Sheriff Kim Cole said in a statement that the congressman’s future invitations should “at the very least warrant a Google search.”

ONE WOULD THINK THIS WOULD BE A BARE-MINIMUM, YEAH?

[Breccia]

“at the very least warrant a Google search.”

Okay, two things.

One, "accused" is not guilty...but...yeah, when this is a big publicity stunt you don't want the publicity to be "I brought a murderer". Asking someone to speak slowly a list of words on a piece of paper in front of them is a pretty basic task, even Trump can almost do it. The list of candidates must be large enough that "might have murdered someone" can be safely disqualifying. This isn't "I have to take money from Saudi Arabia because I'm being invaded by Russia" here, this is purely for the optics, which are now smudged.

And two, har har, "warrant".