Tag: mike johnson
Hegseth and Johnson

House Republicans Recess Early To Escape Vote On Hegseth Impeachment

The House of Representatives has officially left Washington, D.C., for the final time before the midterms, canceling votes scheduled for Thursday to head home and campaign on their pathetic record of increasing healthcare costs, slashing taxes for the rich, and refusing to rein in President Donald Trump’s disastrous tariffs and war in Iran.

So why did they skip town so early?

Well, probably so they can avoid voting on articles of impeachment filed against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth over his handling of the Iran war, accusing him of committing high crimes for ignoring the Constitution and waging war without congressional approval.

Massie also accused Hegseth of carrying out extrajudicial killings by bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea, suppressing free speech by retaliating against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona for urging troops not to follow illegal orders, and kidnapping former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

House rules say that the speaker has to put the articles of impeachment on the floor for a vote within two legislative days. That clearly terrifies Republicans, as it would force them to either defy Trump by impeaching his favorite warmonger or tacitly vote to support the wildly unpopular war in Iran.

Both of those are bad options for Republicans, who can’t afford to anger Trump ahead of the midterms. But voting against the impeachment would essentially be signing off on how he’s handled the Iran war.

So rather than putting Republicans in that position, House Speaker Mike Johnson called a recess to stop the clock on the two-day voting rule.

“I think it shows the cowardice of the Republican Party,” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said. “They are canceling votes to do business for the American people because they are afraid that that impeachment resolution of Pete Hegseth would pass on a bipartisan basis.”

She concluded, “The American people deserve better than Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump.”

Johnson had already canceled two weeks of votes that were scheduled through the end of September, saying that Republicans needed to get back to their districts to campaign. But campaigning for the next 48 days is unlikely to save them anyway.

Trump’s war in Iran and capitulation to Russia in its war against Ukraine have spiked oil prices, raising the cost of fuel across the globe. And that will have downstream inflationary impacts, as diesel—which is used to transport goods and power farming machinery—is at a record high.

Oil and gas experts say that prices are not going to come down in the near future, sounding the alarm on potential fuel shortages.

And it’s all happening just as voters tune in to the general election, with early voting having already started in a handful of states, with more set to come online in the coming days.

We’re already seeing voters’ frustration impacting polls, with Democrats surging on the generic ballot and leading in critical House and Senate races in regions that Trump carried by double digits in 2024.

Since September 1, Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot has grown by 1.1 points, with Marquette University Law School releasing a poll Wednesday that shows Democrats with a 13-point lead among likely voters. If it comes to fruition, that would be an extinction-level election for the GOP.

So House Republicans can go home to campaign all they want. But when they return, many of them will be losers.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos


Trump Pressuring House Republicans To 'Expunge' Both Impeachments Of Him

Trump Pressuring House Republicans To 'Expunge' Both Impeachments Of Him

President Donald Trump is planning to hassle Congress to expunge his impeachments.

The president is trying to get Republican lawmakers to remove his impeachments from the record even though legally such a move is impossible, reported The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey, Olivia Beavers and Natalie Andrews on Thursday.

“It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump told the Journal. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.”

The Journal noted that this could backfire, saying “Any move to attempt to erase the two impeachments, in 2019 and 2021, would open up a debate about Trump’s past behavior in office, forcing GOP lawmakers to relitigate charges of abuse of power, obstruction of Congress and inciting an insurrection. Facing the prospect of losing their majority in the House, Republicans are trying to shift focus to the economy and high costs, the issues that voters care about most.”

Yet even though “the measure likely wouldn’t be considered until after the November election,” the issue could still become a political lightning rod. “Trump has posted news clips about voiding the impeachments on his Truth Social account,” the Journal reported. “But this week, he played down his own role in the effort. ‘If they want to do it, I’m honored by it,’ the president said.”

The Journal added that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R—LA) has discussed the resolution with Trump. He has also discussed it with Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz

“I think it makes a lot of sense the more the evidence comes out, the more we know they really were sham impeachments,” Johnson told the Journal, later adding that “we were saying it at the time, now we know. And they make a very compelling case that it should be expunged from the record, because it was a hyperpartisan attack job.”

Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2019, Dershowitz — who later defended Trump during one of his impeachment trials — denied that he would ever refuse to step down if he lost an election, which is what prompted the impeachment at which Dershowitz did not represent Trump.

No president will refuse to step down if his opponent is elected in his place,” Dershowitz told Salon. “It just will not happen, and the American public would never tolerate it.”

Discussing the Wall Street Journal story, CNN correspondents agreed that Trump’s attempt to scrub the impeachment is both purely symbolic and likely to resurrect the Ukraine coercion and election-denying scandals that prompted those impeachments in the first place.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet


'Rigged!' Trump And MAGA Furious Over Pratt's Defeat In Los Angeles Primary

'Rigged!' Trump And MAGA Furious Over Pratt's Defeat In Los Angeles Primary

President Donald Trump and his movement of MAGA Republicans are venting their rage online after Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt lost to two Democrats, Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman, in the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Because Trump has accused all of the politicians he opposes of cheating, tracing all the way back to the 2016 Republican Iowa caucus, he naturally has accused Bass and Raman of cheating Pratt. MAGA Republicans online are taking notice.

"I'm at the rare intersection of: - Was rooting for Pratt - Thought he was good for the LA political conversation - Dislike California's election administration laws and policies - But understand how the process works,” posted an X user named Stephen Richer.

Similarly Republican pollster Frank Luntz observed "reality TV star Spencer Pratt says he ‘will be done with trying to live in LA’ if he doesn't win the mayoral election. Yesterday, he was surpassed in the Los Angeles mayoral primary for the second run-off spot in November."

Another Republican wrote going by Dr. Terry Simpson on X wrote that "I'm a Republican. Los Angeles is roughly 50% Democratic and about 10% Republican. Any candidate who wants to lead this city must win support well beyond the Republican base. Spencer Pratt didn't lose because voters didn't understand he was independent. He lost.”

Other Republicans reacted with the outrage that Trump is trying to stir up, even though there is no evidence that anything illicit is occurring in the California election.

"A 43,000-vote swing just handed Nithya Raman the edge over Spencer Pratt in LA,” an X user who goes by jay plemons posted. “The exact size of the city's homeless population. Ballot harvesting from shelters, universal mail ballots, and late drops made it happen. Coincidence?"

Similarly X user Mark Mendlovitz wrote, "The large variance of Pratt and Raman but not Bass should be setting off screaming alarm bells."

Even House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested there might be fraud in California, despite the fact that he also acknowledged there is no proof. Instead he cited the absence of evidence as being in itself suspicious.

“I'm not saying it's rigged,” Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday. “I'm saying it stinks to high heaven. And everybody knows that. Let's remove the appearance of impropriety. Let's have, what a concept, let's have votes on an election the day of the election. That's what many states are able to do. I think California is playing around with this.”

After Raju asked Johnson if he had proof the election was improper, he admitted that “I don't — some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here. And that's a concern. We need people to believe in the integrity of our election system.”

Trump, who attempted a coup after he lost the 2020 presidential election to then-Vice President Joe Biden, is reportedly falsely accusing the California election of being stolen as a preparation for denying the results of the 2026 midterms, which are also expected to swing against him.

“By baselessly framing Ms. Raman’s rise as a Democratic scam, Mr. Trump extended his long-running project to erode public faith in elections — and gave an unusually clear preview of how he could greet any disappointing results for his party in November, when control of Congress is at stake,” wrote The New York Times' Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman on Monday. “He has been anything but subtle about his desire to limit the ability of Democrats to vote by mail, implying, with no evidence, that simply choosing that widely used means of casting a ballot is inherently suspect.”

Swan and Haberman added, “Addressing a gathering of Republican lawmakers in March, he said the way to hold their majority was to pass a strict voter identification law cracking down on mail ballots. ‘It’ll guarantee the midterms,’ he told them, warning that failure would bring ‘big trouble.’”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Nasty Nancy Mace Launches Expulsion Bid Against An Even Worse Republican

Nasty Nancy Mace Launches Expulsion Bid Against An Even Worse Republican

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has launched a new crusade.

After the Republican firebrand cruelly tried to ban a transgender lawmaker from bathrooms on Capitol Hill and feuded with airport leadership in her home state of South Carolina—two battles where she was objectively in the wrong—she has now taken on a new foe. And this time, her target is valid.

Mace is trying to expel fellow House Republican and skeeze ball Cory Mills, who is accused of a whole host of horrific things including assault, domestic violence, revenge porn, stolen valor, and even illegally obtaining federal contracts as a member of Congress.“The swamp has protected Cory Mills for far too long and we are done letting it slide,” Mace said Monday in a statement after introducing a resolution to expel the Florida man from Congress. “We tried to censure him and strip him from his committee assignments. Both parties blocked it, but we are not backing down. The evidence against Mills is overwhelming: beating women and telling them to lie about it, cyberstalking women, lying about his military service, and profiting off his seat. Any Member who votes to keep him here is voting to protect a woman beater and a fraud. He needs to be expelled immediately.”

Mace resorted to an expulsion resolution because Mills is refusing to resign—despite multiple other GOP members of Congress urging him to do so.

“There’s absolutely no reason to resign,” Mills told CNN. “He [Johnson] told me not to resign, and he told me that this is why we have this process.”

Indeed, House Speaker Mike Johnson has been protecting Mills for months, and even admitted to CNN that he did actually tell Mills not to resign.

“It is not something I encourage, no. Look, we have a process here,” Johnson said about encouraging his members not to resign amid personal scandals. “So no, I’m not in favor.”

Of course, that’s not surprising in the least. Johnson was happy to keep now-former Rep. Tony Gonzales around after the Texas lawmaker was exposed as a serial sexual harasser, because Gonzales was a reliable vote in Johnson’s slim GOP majority.

Related | Vile allegations against GOP lawmaker? Mike Johnson says no biggie

But wait, the story gets even messier!

Rather than lay low and hope the scandal goes away, Mills has actually picked a fight with Mace, threatening to expel her from Congress.

And he’s taunting her on social media as well, firing off multiple posts on X on Wednesday attacking Mace for her own scandals.

“Hey Nancy, I have no restraining order or any criminal or civil cases open. Can you say the same?” Mills wrote in a post on X, even though he has had restraining orders against him in the past. “What about your restraining order for harassment of your ex fiancé? What about the current gag order issued by the judge in SC and pending cases?”

Mills posted subsequent screeds on X accusing Mace of being mentally unwell, of drinking alcohol, and of being “fake MAGA.”

Related | Nancy Mace’s ‘very nasty’ conduct revealed in police report

Ultimately, in this battle between two utterly detestable and morally repugnant people, Mace is right.

Mills is a pig who belongs nowhere near a position of power, let alone as one of 535 people who make our country’s laws.

As the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Shop our Store

Headlines

Editor's Blog

Trending

World