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Jim Jordan

Jim Jordan Making 'Aggressive Moves' To Replace Speaker Johnson

Since both Republicans and Democrats blocked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) motion to vacate the speakership Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is safe — for now.

The Georgia lawmaker has not been the only Republican House member plotting on Johnson's removal, according to a Thursday, May 9 Axios report.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) has plans of his own to takeover his Louisiana colleague's position in 2025.

Per Axios, several sources said that "Jordan privately told colleagues what he would be doing differently than Johnson during the recent fight over foreign aid funding."

Additionally, the Ohio GOP leader "has been noticed handing out more campaign checks to colleagues," according to some of his colleagues, and one Republican told the news outlet "that Jordan previously said it was 'not his job' to help vulnerable members. His shift has raised his peers' eyebrows."

Jordan was vying for the speakership last year after Rep. Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) ouster, but failed when "25 Republicans refused to vote for him on the House floor on his final ballot."

The Ohio lawmaker has not given up hope.

According to Axios, "Jordan has hit the trail for a bevy of Republicans in recent months, including vulnerable Republicans and" McCarthy allies.

Axios' full report is available here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'Wow': Trump Openly Extorts Billion-Dollar Bribe From Big Oil

'Wow': Trump Openly Extorts Billion-Dollar Bribe From Big Oil

Bombshell reports from The Washington Post andPolitico are fueling concerns over the promises 2024 Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump reportedly has been making to “Big Oil.”

“What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign,” is the Washington Post’s headline.

“Donald Trump has pledged to scrap President Biden’s policies on electric vehicles and wind energy, as well as other initiatives opposed by the fossil fuel industry,” the Post reported.

“You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.”

“Giving $1 billion would be a ‘deal,’ Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people,” the Post added.

“Political contributing is often a type of legalized bribery,” The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo remarked. “But the way Trump is so explicit about making a ‘deal’ is going to raise eyebrows.”

It has.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, an attorney and University of California-Berkeley professor of public policy, issued this warning:

“Trump asked Big Oil execs to give him $1 billion for his campaign. He promised lower taxes and a rollback of Biden’s climate regulations and clean energy programs in return. Trump is literally willing to take bribes in exchange for the destruction of the planet. Be warned,” Reich wrote.

Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI) also issued a warning: “Donald Trump is saying the quiet part out loud. Re-electing him will guarantee ‘deals’ that work against our climate future. He cares more about campaign donations from oil tycoons than the fate of future generations and the health of our planet. Take him at his word.”

“We cannot believe this,” wrote government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “Donald Trump essentially told a room full of oil executives ‘raise a billion dollars for me and I’ll get rid of the regulations that you want.’ This is blatantly corrupt behavior.”

Former Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Weinstein called it, “Bribery straight up.”

“Wow,” exclaimed Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ), “a report today finds donald trump demanded a straight up billion dollar bribe from oil executives. Republicans want to sell you out to big oil to line their pockets.”

Liberal Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century wrote: “New reporting uncovered Trump is already planning to sell the White House to the highest bidder. He’s demanding a $1 billion bribe from oil execs in exchange for massive tax cuts and the repeal of environmental protections and clean energy investments.”

Josh Dorner, a communications executive, responded to the Washington Post’s Heather Long’s summation of the paper’s report, by writing: “Bribery, how does it work?”

Marketing executive Jason Karsh, also responding to Long’s post, wrote: “How cool is it to have a presidential candidate so broke and so corrupt that he’s asking for bribes out in the open. I mean, he’s a Republican so nothing will happen, but this is so clearly what the founders intended, it’s just … *wipes a tear*”

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom commented, “Big Oil is literally writing up Executive Orders for Trump to sign on Day 1 — with the promise of $1 billion in return. He’s giving away our planet in return for cash. Have we just accepted this as the new norm??”

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Laurie Garrett in a lengthy social media thread reached back into history and compared Trump’s alleged billion-dollar request to the Teapot Dome scandal. “Until now, it was the biggest presidential corruption case in US history,” she wrote.

“The Teapot Dome Scandal was, in the 1920s, the greatest threat to the integrity of the US Presidency the Nation had experienced. Not only was Big Oil bribery unfolding, but Harding, a golfer and womanizer, & had a child out of wedlock,” she noted in one post.

See the social media posts above or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Margie Proves Again She's Still Utterly And Ignorantly Antisemitic

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was strongly criticized Wednesday after promoting a historically and biblically false, antisemitic claim while declaring antisemitism is wrong.

As the House voted on an antisemitism bill that would require the U.S. Dept. of Education to utilize a certain definition of antisemitism when enforcing anti-discrimination laws, the far-right Christian nationalist congresswoman made her false claims on social media.

“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” Greene tweeted.

The definition of antisemitism the House bill wants to codify was created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Congresswoman Greene highlighted this specific text which she said she opposes: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.”

What Greene is promoting is called “Jewish deicide,” the false and antisemitic claim that Jews killed Jesus Christ. Some who adhere to that false belief also believe all Jews throughout time, including in the present day, are responsible for Christ’s crucification.

Greene has a history of promoting antisemitism, including comparing mask mandates during the coronavirus pandemic to “gas chambers in Nazi Germany.”

Political commentator John Fugelsang set the record straight:

“If only you could read,” lamented Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq., CEO and Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. The Antisemitism Awareness Act “could not convict anyone for believing anything, even this historical and biblical inaccuracy. It only comes into play if there is unlawful discrimination based on this belief that targets a Jewish person. Do you understand that distinction @RepMTG ?”

“Not surprising,” declared Jacob N. Kornbluh, the senior political reporter at The Forward, formerly the Jewish Daily Forward. “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been accused in the past of making antisemitic remarks — including her suggestion that a Jewish-funded space laser had sparked wildfires in California in 2018, voted against the GOP-led Antisemitism Awareness Act.”

Jewish Telegraphic Agency Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas, an award-winning journalist, took a deeper dive into Greene’s remarks.

“Ok leave aside the snark. The obvious antisemitism is in saying ‘the Jews’ crucified Jesus when even according to the text she believes in it was a few leaders in a subset of a contemporary Jewish community. It is collective blame, the most obvious of bigotries.”

“The text she presumably predicates her case on, the New Testament,” he notes, “was when it was collated a political document at a time when Christians and Jews were competing for adherents and when it would have been plainly dangerous to blame Rome for the murder of God.”

“Yes,” Kampeas continues, “that take is obviously one that a fundamentalist would not embrace, but it is the objective and historical take, and *should* be available to Jews (and others!) as a means of explaining why Christian antisemitism exists, and why it is harmful.”

CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere also slammed Greene, saying she “is standing up for continuing to talk about Jews being responsible for the killing of Jesus. (John & Matthew refer to some Jews handing over Jesus to Pilate,not Herod. But also: many, including Pope Benedict, have called blaming Jews a misinterpretation)”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Mike Johnson

House Democrats: We'll Protect Speaker From His Party's Far Right

House Democratic leadership announced Tuesday that they’ll allow members to block any effort from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her tiny team of nihilists to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, a reminder of where the power sits in the House.

“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-TX) said in a statement.

Even among Republicans Greene’s tantrums have been wearing thin for a few weeks now, but since she had Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Thomas Massie of Kentucky as cosponsors, the theoretical threat remained real—Johnson’s margin of error is that small.

So Greene has continued the bombast.

“Johnson will do whatever Biden/Schumer want in order to keep the Speaker’s gavel in his hand, but he has completely sold out the Republican voters who gave us the majority,” she tweeted Sunday. “His days as Speaker are numbered.”

Republicans feared Greene would make her move Tuesday, but as she and Massie were going into a meeting with the House parliamentarian, she said that “the plan is still being developed.” Then she and Massie left, telling reporters that they had been “developing plans.”

Maybe the speaker’s days aren’t so numbered after all, at least not by her doing. There’s always the possibility that more Republicans will quit, turning the majority officially over to Democrats, but it won’t be through Greene’s efforts. Even Freedom Caucus loud-mouth Chip Roy of Texas says it would be a mistake.

“I do not believe that is the direction that the American people want us to take right now,” he told reporters Monday.

That’s likely in part because Donald Trump has given Johnson his support, twice in two weeks, and he rules their world.

Once the fever broke on Ukraine aid and Johnson was forced to do the right thing, most of them, particularly Johnson, have had to accept the reality that Democrats have control where it matters, making sure that the government continues to function and critical legislation gets passed.

But leader Jeffries wants to make sure that Johnson remembers it’s on their sufferance.

“Mike Johnson doesn’t need too many Democratic friends,” Jeffries toldThe New York Times.

He also quipped that Johnson is lucky to have the enemies that he does.

“[Greene] is one of the best things the speaker has going for him because so many people find her insufferable,” he said.

But does Democratic intervention make Johnson weaker among Republicans?

“Republicans will have to work that out on their end,” Jeffries said. “The reality of this particular Congress is that we are functioning in a manner consistent with a bipartisan governing coalition in order to get things done for the American people.”

And Jeffries isn’t going to let Johnson forget it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.