The Everything 118th Congress Thread

[Cooked Crack]

 

[EmirOfShmo]

 

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by EmirOfShmo

[China]

GOP discord threatens Senate response to railway disaster

 

An internal GOP dispute between party leaders and a motley crew of junior lawmakers is threatening to sink a bipartisan rail safety bill aimed at responding to February’s toxic spill in East Palestine, Ohio.

 

Top Republicans aren’t currently lifting a finger to help the rail bill, which is two GOP senators short of 60 votes and even more votes short of having a chance in the GOP-controlled House. The bill’s lead Republican sponsor, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, is optimistic about its prospects — but as of now there’s a decent chance it could get filibustered on the floor without significant changes, according to interviews with a dozen senators.

 

The rail safety divide within the Republican Party is a microcosm of its realignment over the past few years: Former President Donald Trump supports it, but other than Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the effort gets almost all its GOP support from the party’s small yet growing populist wing. And unless the party’s establishment gets more fully on board, the safety plan Vance shaped with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) may stall out.

 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said publicly this week that he’s undecided on the bill, but many of his allies view the proposal’s new requirements for rail staffing and inspection as anathema to the party’s long-held small-government stance. As Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) put it: “It seems like it’s just too much government regulation.”

 

“There are some things that were added simply to kind of get the unions on board with it,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), a former Commerce Committee chair, said of the bill. Thune added that some of its provisions “are very objectionable from the regulatory standpoint, and handing a whole ton of power over” to the Biden administration.

 

The derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, leading to a release of toxic vinyl chloride that was later burned, is now more than five months in the rearview mirror. While the response bill is on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s agenda, there’s no immediate plan to take it up on the Senate floor given the unclear GOP whip count.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The Standoff Between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert Is Worse Than You Think

 

It’s no secret that the relationship between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert has never been worse. The two U.S. representatives yelled at each other on and off the House floor. Greene recently called Boebert a “little ****” to her face. And Boebert supported Greene’s removal from the Freedom Caucus.

 

But, lawmakers told The Daily Beast, the situation between the two is still even worse than most people think.

 

Burchett, who later clarified that he was serious, said he was enjoying the standoff as a “professional wrestling fan.”

 

“I am friends with both of them. It’s entertaining to think that a fistfight could break out at any movement. I kind of dig that,” he continued.

 

Burchett isn’t the only person who thinks the feud could turn even nastier.

 

Another Republican lawmaker who is close to both Greene and Boebert told The Daily Beast that the situation was a tinderbox.

“You can’t have too many of these rifts for too long,” this lawmaker said.

 

Another GOP member suggested that one of them would destroy the other—they just didn’t know who would come out on top.

 

Click on the link for more

[88Comrade2000]

Arm them and let them kill each other.

[EmirOfShmo]

 

 

[Renegade7]

Shoutout to JD getting with Sherrod on that railway bill...totally had him pegged as a rubber stamp for idocracy, but he's takin that toxic train derailment in their state seriously. As he fn should.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Renegade7

[LadySkinsFan]

23 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

Shoutout to JD getting with Sherrod on that railway bill...totally had him pegged as a rubber stamp for idocracy, but he's takin that toxic train derailment in their state seriously. As he fn should.

 

A rare moment of sanity.

[Renegade7]

3 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

 

A rare moment of sanity.

 

Broken clock right twice a day...

[China]

Democrat Hilariously Schools Furious Far Right Congressman Over UFO Bill: ‘You Voted to Block Your Own Amendment’

 

Far right Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee has only been in Congress since 2019, so perhaps he should be forgiven for not knowing how things work there.

 

Congressman Burchett became nationally known for his remarks against gun control back in March, just after a school mass shooting in Nashville, the capital of his home state, where three nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death by a shooter with two AR-15 style assault rifles and a handgun.

 

“We’re not gonna fix it,” Burchett infamously said. “I don’t see any role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly.”

 

Rather than even entertain common sense gun reforms, Burchett immediately decided the only thing that will reduce gun violence is God.

 

Saying, “you’ve got to change people’s hearts,” Burchett called for a Christian revival. “As a Christian, we talk about the church. I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country.”

 

Also back in March, Congressman Burchett took a similar hands-off, laissez-faire stance on racism. He joined all 26 Republicans on the House Oversight Committee who refused to sign a simple two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy.

 

So you might assume that the Tennessee congressman has a “live and let live” approach to things, given he thinks Congress just has no impact on people’s lives, but you’d be wrong.

In December, when it came time to vote on the Respect for Marriage Act, voted against protecting the marriages of same-sex and interracial couples. Seems he did think Congress can play a role in people’s lives.

 

Fast forward to this week.

 

Congressman Burchettt is very angry that an amendment he filed did not even get a vote.

 

“Congressman Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) held a news conference on Thursday with congressional colleagues to announce an upcoming committee hearing and to demand transparency from the federal government over unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), which are more commonly dubbed ‘UFOs,'” WBIR reported Thursday.

 

Burchett tried but failed to introduce a “late” amendment, and later “said he was told the amendment was shot down by either the House Intelligence Committee or the ‘intelligence community,’ saying he wasn’t totally sure who knocked it down.”

 

“This is ridiculous, folks. They do exist or they don’t exist. They keep telling us they don’t exist, but they block every opportunity for us to get ahold of the information,” he said.

 

 

Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee, stepped in to clear things up for the confused congressman.

 

“What are you talking about?” McGovern tweeted. “It wasn’t the ‘intelligence community,’ you voted to block YOUR OWN amendment. Are YOU part of the coverup?”

 

Apparently still confused, Burchett shot back: “Mr. Ranking Member of Rules Committee, perhaps your intern shouldn’t be allowed to run your Twitter account. Find someone who can fact check. This amendment wasn’t even given a vote in Rules. No one had a chance to vote on this amendment. That’s the problem.”

 

McGovern wasn’t having it.

 

“The problem is that you submitted an amendment, and then you voted for a Rule that blocked your own amendment. That’s why no one had a chance to vote on it. That’s how this works,” he said, schooling Burchett. “Also, I write my tweets myself.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Top Republican blocks Biden’s nuclear submarine pact in bid for more defense dollars

 

Republicans pushing to boost the Pentagon budget topline have new leverage: the Biden administration’s commitment to send nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.

 

Big picture: Senate Armed Services Republicans are jamming up a key piece of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda — the U.S. security pact with Australia and the U.K. to share nuclear submarine technology, known as AUKUS.

 

The move to block the agreement, led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), is the latest bid to force the White House to boost military spending beyond levels set by the debt-limit deal.

 

Wicker, despite the fact that he supports AUKUS, blocked a plan to fast-track Congress’s authorization to sell Australia three Virginia-class attack subs, a major pillar of the multinational agreement announced this year. He’s arguing that for U.S. submarine manufacturers to be able to boost production enough to supply both the U.S. Navy and Australia, the industry needs more investment from the federal government.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LadySkinsFan]

****ing Fascists.

[China]

Congress unlikely to replenish disaster funds anytime soon

 

Despite mounting concerns about extreme weather and natural disasters this summer, Congress is not likely to deliver funds for emergency disaster aid before it leaves for August recess.

 

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle acknowledge that boosting disaster relief funding is urgent, with peak wildfire and hurricane season around the corner and the Federal Emergency Management Agency slated to run out of reserves in August.

 

But Congress has just one week left before summer recess and leaders have expressed no plans of taking up any emergency spending legislation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

Look at all these "pro-life" groups

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Captain Wiggles]

He's right. Most of what Bob and his allies do does in fact hurt the American people. 🤷‍♂️

[PleaseBlitz]

Mitch McConnell had a strange issue today.  I hope he's okay.  

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/watch-mitch-mcconnell-freeze-press-conference-rcna96486

[gbear]

stroke?  That was awkward looking.  I hope he is ok too.  I don't like his politics, but I still hope he is ok.

[China]

Democrats want to make the minimum wage $17 an hour and give nearly 28 million workers a raise

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders is once again pushing for a higher minimum wage.

 

Sanders, alongside 29 senators and nearly 150 House representatives, introduced new legislation to bring up the federal minimum rate for the first time since 2009. 

 

"It was the movie Wall Street where Michael Douglas played the character Gordon Gekko, who famously uttered the words 'greed is good,'" Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said during a Tuesday afternoon event to unveil the legislation. "We want to make clear that greed is not good. Greed is not good for the American worker."

 

Under the latest version of the Raise the Wage Act, the federal minimum would climb to $17 by 2028. It's an effort that's most likely dead on arrival, as previous attempts to push through a hike — even in a House and Senate both previously controlled by Democrats — have failed to pass. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[CousinsCowgirl84]

32 minutes ago, gbear said:

stroke?  That was awkward looking.  I hope he is ok too.  I don't like his politics, but I still hope he is ok.

I bet he just pulled a Roker….

 

 

[China]

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I bet he just pulled a Roker….

 

 

 

 

[ixcuincle]

mitch is clearly too old to serve

 

why do people like him and chuck grasserly continue to serve. they are very old people.

 

americans deserve young legislators who listen to their constitutinets instead of these old farts

and it's not just republicans too. Pelosi is ancient.

 

Shake it up and bring new blood in.

[skinsmarydu]

He stole a SCOTUS seat.  Don't be sympathic.  (Or empathetic, for that matter.)  His time has been long overdue. 

 

**** him.  He'll get the drama that he is NOT warranted when he passes. 

 

 

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by skinsmarydu

[EmirOfShmo]

 

[Cooked Crack]

Spoiler

 

Language

 

Who would ever be scared of Kevin McCarthy? Don't know what he think he was doing with that.