They held their breath until they turned blue and nothing happened Awwwwww: House conservatives are furious about the government funding bill negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson that sailed through Congress last week, calling it a betrayal of Republican promises to cut spending and reshape the federal budget. But in a twist, this time they aren’t threatening to overthrow the man in charge of cutting those funding deals with a Democratic-led Senate and White House, even as they’ve begun to paint him as a functionary for status quo policies. House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., has blasted the first of two funding packages and said he doesn’t expect a better deal in the second one, which must pass by March 22 to avoid a partial government shutdown. “Because the speaker doesn’t want to do that. He just wants to pass what the Senate wants so that we avoid any conflict,” Good told NBC News, saying that Johnson, R-La., wants to “join hands with the Dems” to “increase spending” and yield “no policy wins.” “The speaker is unwilling to tell the Senate no,” he said.
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You don’t have to imagine it: The list goes on. Lara is going to be a rich source of MAGA BS, isn’t she?
Trump’s ally Orban spells out Trump’s Ukraine plan Not that we didn’t know this was his plan to “end the war in 24 hours,” but it’s now been confirmed. He will hand Ukraine to Vladimir Putin and leave Europe to its own devices: Donald Trump will totally stop funding Ukraine if he wins the U.S. election in November, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said following a meeting between the right-wing figureheads. “He will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war,” Orbán told Hungarian state media Sunday. “Therefore, the war will end, because it is obvious that Ukraine can not stand on its own feet.” The longtime allies met last Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a summit which was lambasted by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Britt is as phony as Joe Biden is real It was baked in that Saturday Night Live would use Alabama Sen. Katie Britt’s “absurdly overdramatic” SOTU performance as it’s cold open. My problem with SNL’s sketch? “Bless his heart” Britt will probably just be flattered that SNL asked Scarlett Johansson to play her. “What was the point of that nonsense?” The American Conservative asked, descrbing Britt’s appearance as a ” hyper-emotional speech that verged from creepy to hormonal to giddy within the span of twenty minutes.” It’s a wonder SNL did not just replicate Britt’s address almost word-for-word, as Tina Fey once did in mocking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But The American Conservative‘s response to Biden’s SOTU was just as bizarre, judging it a declaration of war on half the country while calling Biden a liar and Britt “authentic.” Judge for yourself which of the likely 2024 presidential candidates is the kind of authentic you want sitting in the Oval Office.
Will SCOTUS now revisit Dobbs and Heller? Need I repeat that conservatives principles always seem to be a mile wide and an inch deep? Democracy, the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power, peace through strength, the sacredness of the Constitution, etc. “If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism,” Congressman Paul Ryan insisted four years before becoming House Speaker. Relativism was for years a charge conservatives levied against liberals. Until it was no longer useful. My memorable first introduction to Rick Perlstein in 2005 included something Richard Nixon once told a staffer, “Flexibility is the first principle of politics.” Expediency conservatives hold sacrosanct. Jill Lepore asks in The New Yorker whether, having sacrificed the 14th Amendment in pursuit of political expediency, “originalists” on the Supreme Court now feel free to rexamine other amendments: There’s more than one way to skin a Constitution.
From the “you can’t make this stuff up” files She is totally shameless so this won’t embarrass her. But it should embarrass someone. The following won’t embarrass this looney tunes either. But it should: I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Kevin McCarthy about anything. But his loathing for this woman is well taken. I hope he succeeds in using his network to take her out. She’s almost as nuts as George Santos. And then there’s this piece of work: Oh really? Imagine that … As I said, you can’t make this stuff up.
DeSantis’ spectacular flame out sours his followers on his strategy Oh my. It looks like Ron DeSantis has lost his clout. Florida’s sick of the “war on woke.” Just this last week the GOP legislature failed to even get a rainbow flag ban out of committee! What is this world coming to? It wasn’t the only culture war proposal from conservative lawmakers to end up in the bill graveyard during the session that ended Friday. One rejected bill would have banned the removal of Confederate monuments. Another would have required transgender people to use their sex assigned at birth on driver’s licenses — something the state Department of Motor Vehicles is already mandating. A third proposed forbiddinglocal and state government officials from using transgender people’s pronouns. Some of those ideas have come up in the past and may surface again next year. But the fact that the bills failed, even with public support from DeSantis, marks a change from the days when the GOP supermajority in Tallahassee passed nearly everything the governor asked for.
This is why they like Republicans Stephen Greenhouse in The Guardian: Upset by the surge in union drives, several of the best-known corporations in the US are seeking to cripple the country’s top labor watchdog, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), by having it declared unconstitutional. Some labor experts warn that if those efforts succeed, US labor relations might return to “the law of the jungle”. In recent weeks, Elon Musk’s SpaceX as well as Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have filed legal papers that advance novel arguments aimed at hobbling and perhaps shutting down the NLRB – the federal agency that enforces labor rights and oversees unionization efforts. Those companies are eager to thwart the NLRB after it accused Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s of breaking the law in battling against unionization and accused SpaceX of illegally firing eight workers for criticizing Musk.
Trump said Biden’s speech was an “angry, dark, hate-filled” divisive rant. And then he mocked Biden’s stutter and spent two hours spewing vile, grotesque rhetoric to rival even American Carnage The NY Times: Early in his remarks at what was effectively his first campaign rally of the general election, former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday blasted President Biden’s State of the Union address as an “angry, dark, hate-filled rant” that was more divisive than unifying. Then, in the nearly two hours that followed, Mr. Trump, speaking in Rome, Ga., used inflammatory language to stoke fears on immigration, and repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. The former president, who faces four criminal cases, called the press “criminals.” And he mocked President Biden’s stutter and revived a litany of grievances against political opponents, prosecutors and television executives. Mr. Trump told thousands of his supporters gathered at the rally that “everything Joe Biden touches” turns to filth, though he used an expletive to describe the result. “Everything.
Looks like Trump has his own problems and Giuliani’s on his own Rudy’s mess just keeps getting messier: Attorneys for Rudy Giuliani’s creditors negotiating his Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed a request on Thursday, demanding that Giuliani reveal his financial secrets, including details on his cable TV earnings, the origin of his legal defense fund (led by his son), and even the nature of his work for Trump. The far-reaching order is only possible thanks to allegations that Giuliani participated in “discovery misconduct”—that is to say, he failed to spill all the beans the first time around when he was sued by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. “Indeed, it was Giuliani’s discovery misconduct in the Freeman Litigation—concerning Giuliani’s defamatory statements about two Georgia 2020 election workers—that led U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A.