Tag: mccarthy
George Santos

McCarthy Still Protecting Santos As Democrats Prepare Censure Resolution

A group of Democratic House members announced on Monday that they plan to introduce a resolution to formally censure Rep. George Santos, the indicted New York Republican who has been caught in a wide array of lies about his upbringing, resume, and family and faces multiple charges of money laundering and fraud.

The censure resolution, the strictest punishment Congress can hand down aside from expulsion, is being led by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY).

“For too long, House Republicans, under the leadership of Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy, have been shielding and protecting Rep. Santos from any shred of accountability,” Torres said in the announcement.

Torres said he is filing the resolution because the House Ethics Committee has yet to release its report on Santos, after House Republicans referred an expulsion resolution against Santos to the the committee in May. Rep. Nick LaLota, one of the New York Republicans who wants Santos to resign, said at the time they expected the House Ethics Committee to issue a report a couple of months later.

“We expect a result within 60 days and for the terrible liar to be gone, by resignation or expulsion, before August recess,” said LaLota, who has said he thinks Santos should resign but voted against expelling him from Congress.

The Ethics Committee has not issued a report.

“It has now been 60 days and Rep. Santos continues to defraud the people of his district and disgrace our institution. I invite all those who have condemned his repeated lies and deception or called on Rep. Santos to resign to join House Democrats in voting to support my resolution to formally censure him and to stop treating him as untouchable,” Torres said.

McCarthy said in May that he hoped the Ethics Committee would move quickly. He said on Monday in response to the censure resolution that Democrats should allow the Ethics Committee to carry out its process.

“They have brought this up numerous times. This is their entire agenda,” McCarthy told reporters on Monday, according to CBS News. “We don’t get involved within the Ethics Committee. These are individuals who will do their job and get their work done and follow through on whatever they need to find.”

Despite his criticism of efforts to censure and expel an indicted member of Congress, he blessed Republicans’ censure of Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff for investigating former President Donald Trump.

McCarthy said Schiff deserved to be censured because, he claimed, Schiff had lied to the American public during Congress’ investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia about whether he knew the whistleblower whose alleged evidence led to the first Trump impeachment inquiry. The Washington Post Fact Checker did not find any evidence of a lie, but that hasn’t stopped accusations from Republicans.

“Adam Schiff abused his position as Chair of Intel to lie and lead America through a national nightmare with the fake Russia collusion narrative,” McCarthy tweeted ahead of Republicans’ successful censure vote against Schiff. “As Speaker, I removed him from the Intel Committee, and now the full House will vote to censure him and open an ethics investigation.”

Santos, however, has been caught lying.

The censure resolution Torres filed along with fellow Democratic New York Rep. Daniel Goldman and Democratic California Rep. Ted Lieu lists 11 of those lies, including that Santos “deliberately misrepresented that his grandparents survived the Holocaust”; “falsely claimed that his mother died during the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 “; “deliberately misrepresented that 4 of his employees were killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting”; and “falsely claimed that he helped produce the Broadway musical ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.'”.

Because Democrats are in the minority in the House, they do not control what legislation makes it to the floor. However, any member can force a vote on a censure resolution over the House majority’s objections.

“Republican leadership and the six New York Republicans who profess to want George Santos out of Congress continue to embrace an admitted liar and an indicted fraudster in the halls of Congress,” Goldman said in a news release announcing his co-sponsorship of the censure resolution.

Goldman continued: “Their refusal to hold George Santos accountable is an insult not only to this institution but to the people of NY-03. Speaker McCarthy said we would get a report from the Ethics Committee today — yet another false promise designed to protect Santos. I am proud to stand with my Democratic colleagues in doing what Republican leadership refuses to do – fight for George Santos’ constituents and censure him for his repeated lies and deception.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

John Kennedy

Despite McCarthy Pledge, Republicans Demand Social Security Cuts

Two Republican lawmakers asserted the retirement age should be raised during Sunday morning interviews, Rolling Stone reports.

This comes as GOP members continue to insist they will keep their hands off of Social Security, since President Joe Biden called them out during his 2023 State of the Union address for attempts to make cuts to the social program.

The Recounttweeted, "'For people who are in their 20s, their life expectancy will probably be 85 to 90. Does it really make sense to allow someone who's in their 20s today to retire at 62?' — Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) on why we should talk about changes to Social Security and Medicare."

Rolling Stone reports:

Kennedy added that current life expectancy is 77 and claimed that it will continue to go up, but life expectancy in the United States has declined since hitting a high of 78.9 years in 2014.

In the last year alone, average life expectancy decreased from 77 to 76.1, according to data from the CDC. Life expectancy for Black Americans is also significantly lower than for white Americans. Black men, for example, have a life expectancy of 68 years. Currently, 62-year-olds qualify for partial retirement benefits, but the full retirement age is transitioning to 67, due to legislation passed in 1983.

Furthermore, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), in a Sunday interview with CNN, asserted the conversation of raising the retirement age must be discussed.

Aaron Rupar posted clip from Mace's interview, tweeting, "I think that's something that has to be on the table we have to look at" -- Nancy Mace indicates support for raising the retirement age."

The congresswoman continued, "We do have to look at Social Security. We’ve got to look at spending in this country — mandatory and discretionary — if we're gonna take on fixing the Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, you name it. We've gotta get serious about it."

Watch the videos below or at this link.



Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Biden -- And  Every Democrat -- Must Stand Strong Against Debt Blackmail

Biden -- And Every Democrat -- Must Stand Strong Against Debt Blackmail

While Speaker Kevin McCarthy demands transparency from the Biden White House, he has concealed crucial facts from the American public ever since he forged the "corrupt bargain" that greased his ascension to the constitutional post he now holds. The details of the agreement that allowed McCarthy to scrape together the barest majority are said to be set down in a three-page memorandum, which remains hidden.

What we already know, however, is that McCarthy arranged for ordinary Americans to subsidize his sleazy deal with the far Right when he promised to withhold approval of a higher debt ceiling until Democrats agree to enormous budget reductions — including harsh cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Unless Senate Democrats and the White House surrender to those absurd demands, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, too, House Republicans insist they will force the United States to repudiate its debts and wreck its credit.

Debt repudiation would have devastating consequences for the national economy, the global economy, and America's position in the world. The only beneficiaries would be the adversaries of the United States. That much is obvious. And if it is, then aren't those politicians who constantly proclaim their own patriotism but seek to drive the country into ruin shouldn't even contemplate such acts — unless they're not so patriotic after all?

The Republican crazies say these extreme measures reflect their deep concern about budget deficits and the national debt. Their worrying would be more plausible if they had bothered to speak up on any of several occasions during Donald Trump's presidency when Congress had to raise the debt ceiling as a matter of course. Not once did Democrats even whisper about blackmailing Trump over the debt increase. And not once did Republicans protest the Trump spending and tax policies that ballooned the debt by trillions.

Now, of course, Donald Trump is for welshing on the debt ceiling. This would not be the first time he has encouraged financial chicanery. Ask the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to felonious fraud in Trump's service and is now taking up residence on Riker's Island.

It is especially obnoxious for Trump to encourage a debt ceiling default when so much of the debt was incurred during his presidency. A higher debt ceiling isn't needed to enable future spending, but to cover spending that already occurred. Legal scholars would add that repudiating the debt would violate the Constitution, which protects "the full faith and credit of the United States," and the 14th Amendment, which stipulates that "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law... shall not be questioned."

Trump may believe a default wouldn't matter. After all, his deadbeat approach to business always involved shafting his creditors, walking away from his debts and escaping accountability through bankruptcy. That may be how life works for a small-time swindler, but it isn't what great nations do — and the price would be unacceptably high.

The Republicans always say they want to operate government more like business — but they didn't say they want to run it like Trump's crooked company.

For now, the Treasury can manage the debt ceiling by shuffling various accounts and delaying certain payments, even though the nation officially passed "Debt Ceiling Day" on January 19. Sometime in the next several months a reckoning will loom.

Appropriately enough, the renewal of the debt ceiling debate is coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of Bill Clinton, the only president in living memory who actually reduced deficits and debt. He did the opposite of Trump, raising taxes on the rich and setting the country on a path toward budget surplus (until the Republicans returned to power and blew it all).

The last time congressional Republicans (including McCarthy) made menacing noises about the debt ceiling was in 2011. Clinton wisely urged President Barack Obama to stand firm — just as he did when congressional Republicans led by Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to kill Medicare and shut down the government. Ultimately even the impetuous Gingrich refrained from threatening a debt default, although Clinton knew that his nemesis had considered deploying that terror tactic.

"I think (the Gingrich Republicans) figured I'd be smart enough to explain to the American people that they were refusing to pay for the expenses they had voted for when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were president," Clinton recalled in 2011. "And that would make them look bad."

"The Constitution is clear and this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy," he added. "You can't say, 'Well, we won the last election, and we didn't vote for some of that stuff, so we're going to throw the whole country's credit into arrears."

Clinton took the measure of the extremists on Capitol Hill during his second term, facing them down during two government shutdowns. He wasn't impressed by their sudden enthusiasm for balanced budgets, and he knew that standing up to their bullying and lying was the only way forward. Biden should study and heed the example.

The urgency now may be even greater, with the current gang of Republican extremists even more reckless than their irresponsible predecessors.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Gaetz Threatens McCarthy With 'Straitjacket' As Speaker

Gaetz Threatens McCarthy With 'Straitjacket' As Speaker

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the ringleader behind the “Never Kevin” McCarthy movement that has shut down half the legislative branch for days, is vowing he will continue his attack on the GOP House Majority Leader and derail his attempt to become Speaker.

Right now the House is in the middle of its eighth vote for Speaker, which some of the major networks are no longer airing in full. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) this time nominated McCarthy, as Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) reminded Republicans that for every previous vote Democrats were united one-hundred percent behind Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for Speaker. In every one of the previous seven votes all 212 Democrats voted unanimously for the New York Democrat. (McCarthy would lose four more votes before the House adjourned on Thursday evening.)

Rep. Clark nominated Democratic Minority Leader for Speaker of the House once again.

Meanwhile, CBS News’ chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa reported Gaetz “tells reporters just now that this all ends either with McCarthy deciding to ‘withdraw from the race’ or agrees to a ‘straitjacket’ agreement that fully constrains him as speaker.”

Pointing to still more fracturing among the GOP caucus, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), one of the 20 opposing McCarthy, did not vote for their alternative candidate, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), but threw a new wrench into the works.

She voted for Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK).

This was apparently not entirely unexpected.


As for who Congressman Gaetz voted for?

“Donald John Trump.”

Twice.


That move comes just one day after Gaetz appeared to mock Trump publicly, defying the ex-president and declaring, “Supporting McCarthy is the worst Human Resources decision President Trump has ever made,” then adding, “Sad!”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.