#Republican House of Representatives

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Thompson, USA Today

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 25, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 26, 2023

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta today sentenced the leader of the right-wing Oath Keepers organization, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, to 18 years in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release. In November a jury found Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, and tampering with documents and proceedings, for his role in organizing people to go to Washington in January 2021 and try to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president. Rhodes told the court that his only crime was standing against those who are “destroying our country.” He says he believes he is a “political prisoner” and that he hopes Trump will win the presidency in 2024. “You are not a political prisoner, Mr. Rhodes,” Judge Mehta said. “You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.” And yet, former president Trump has said he would not only pardon the January 6 offenders, but would apologize to them for their treatment by the government. Today, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who yesterday announced he is running for president, said he, too, would consider pardoning them, promising to be “aggressive in issuing pardons.” Rhodes struck at our elections. Today in the Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency decision, the Supreme Court struck at the government regulations that underpin modern America. Michael and Chantell Sackett bought land near Priest Lake, Idaho, and backfilled the wetlands on the property to build a home. The EPA found they had violated the Clean Water Act, which prohibits putting pollutants into “the waters of the United States.” Officials told them to restore the site or face penalties of more than $40,000 a day. By a vote of 5–4, the Supreme Court found that “waters” refers only to “‘streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes’ and to adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection.” This decision will remove federal protection from half of the currently protected wetlands in the U.S, an area larger than California. Homeowners, farmers, and developers will have far greater latitude to intrude on wetlands than they did previously, and that intrusion has already wrought damage as wetlands act like a sponge to absorb huge amounts of water during hurricanes. From 1992 to 2010, Houston, for example, lost more than 70% of its wetlands to development, leaving it especially vulnerable to Hurricane Harvey, a category 4 hurricane that in 2017 left 107 people dead and caused $125 billion in damage. The decision said that the EPA had overreached in its protection of wetlands as part of the Clean Water Act, and that Congress must “enact exceedingly clear language” on any rules that affect private property. This court seems eager to gut federal regulation, suggesting that Congress cannot delegate regulatory rulemaking to the executive branch. As investigative journalist Dave Troy put it, “If [the] EPA can’t enforce its rules, what federal agency can?” Justice Elena Kagan warned that by destroying the authority of the EPA, both now and in the West Virginia v. EPA decision last June that restricted the agency's ability to regulate emissions from power plants, the court had appointed itself “as the national decision maker on environmental policy.” The Clean Water Act passed by an overwhelming bipartisan vote in 1972, during the administration of Republican president Richard M. Nixon. Nixon backed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 after a massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, over ten days in January–February 1969 poured between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil into the Pacific, fouling 35 miles of California beaches and killing seabirds, dolphins, sea lions, and elephant seals, and then, four months later, in June 1969, the chemical contaminants that had been dumped into Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire. In February 1970, Nixon told Congress “[W]e…have too casually and too long abused our natural environment. The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future.” Nixon called for a 37-point program with 23 legislative proposals and 14 new administrative measures to control water and air pollution, manage solid waste, protect parklands and public recreation, and organize for action. At Nixon’s urging, Congress created the EPA in 1970, and two years later, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, establishing protections for water quality and regulating pollutant discharges into waters of the United States. House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) tweeted that “[t]oday’s Supreme Court ruling is a win for farmers, businesses, and Americans across the nation by rejecting, yet again, the Biden administration’s costly and burdensome regulatory overreach.” But it sure looks like the story is not about Biden, but rather is about an extremist SCOTUS overturning 50 years of law that gave us clean water because it is determined to slash federal authority to regulate business. McCarthy is trying to manage his conference while members of the far-right Freedom Caucus strike at our economy. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated today that defaulting on the national debt is not an option. “The President has said that, the Speaker has said that, and we want the American people to understand that as well…. What is up for debate, though, is the budget,” she said. “And that’s what these discussions are about: two very different fiscal visions for our country and our economy.” Biden’s proposed budget invests in ordinary Americans and over 10 years is projected to reduce the deficit by nearly $3 trillion by “asking the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share and by slashing wasteful spending on special interests.” In contrast, “House Republicans…want to slash programs millions of hardworking Americans count on, while also protecting tax breaks skewed to the wealthy and corporations that will add $3.5 trillion to the debt. That’s where these negotiations began,” she said. Finally, there is news today about the man that Rhodes is going to prison for, concerning his strike at our national security. Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Spencer S. Hsu, and Perry Stein of the Washington Post reported that on June 2, 2022, the day one of Trump’s lawyers contacted the Justice Department to say that officials were welcome to come to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the classified documents the department had subpoenaed, two of Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers. The next day, when FBI agents arrived, Trump’s lawyers gave them 38 documents, said they had conducted a “diligent search,” and claimed that all the relevant documents had been turned over. Yet, when FBI agents conducted a search two months later, they found more than 100 additional classified documents. The timing of the moved boxes suggests that Trump was deliberately hiding certain documents. The Washington Post article also says that more than one witness has told prosecutors that Trump sometimes kept classified documents out in the open and showed them to people. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement: “This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[xcizion]

Joke’s on you, America—Kevin McCarthy has a humiliation kink and he’s been rock hard for four days.

[intersectionalpraxis]

[charlesoberonn]

Updating an old Simpsons joke to make it more accurate

[godhateswizards]

"I can do this all day," a bruised and bloodied Kevin McCarthy says as he struggles to his feet, before punching himself in the face again, breaking his nose.

[anonymouscomrade]

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[dadsinsuits]

Mike Bost

[thestompinggroundshowappropriate]

[deadpresidents]

Just to point out that while George Santos was finally expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives after being charged with 23 felony crimes, committing astounding levels of fraud, and fabricating absolutely stupid amounts of his background, it still required the heavy-lifting of Democratic members to close the deal, and a majority of Republicans voted to allow him to remain.

House Speaker Mike Johnson -- who was unanimously elected as the Republican leader of the House by GOP members in October -- continued to demonstrate his moral leadership by voting to let Santos hold on to his seat in Congress.

[taylorscottbarnett]

Real consequences of not having a US Speaker of the House of Representatives:

The US House ceases to function.

New Lawmakers can't get sworn in, so they: cant get paid, can't receive classified briefings, can't sit on committees, can't vote. (Neither can their staff).

Bills can't be brought to the floor for a vote.

Law and precedent forbid the House Lawmakers (and thus Senate lawmakers too outside their responsibilities in confirming Presidential appointments, treaties, exc) can't do anything because the House can't vote on anything.

Representative Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin and a former Marine, was supposed to become chairman of a select committee scrutinizing Chinese aggression, but on Wednesday he was not allowed in a scheduled meeting with top military brass in a secure facility — known as a SCIF — because he has yet to be sworn in as a member of the new Congress. Because technically and legally he doesn't have security clearance since he's not a member of this congress.

House members can't help their constituents get services they are entitled to:

Passports, IRS, veteran's issues, SBA, Post Office, Immigration issues, Corps of Engineers, etc.

The US chain of command is thrown into disarray (The Speaker is second in line for succession to the Presidency).

This isn't a bug: much like in 2010, this is exactly what some Republicans came to the US House to do. Specifically break government, then run on how the Government doesn't work. The one they broke.

[missmarthanightingale]

[republikkkanorcs]

MAGA Mike Johnson is a douche.

[lawlawlaws-blog]

🌊🌊💙

[wardsutton]

My Cartoon for the Los Angeles Times.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

You might assume that Dr. Anthony Fauci, after 54 years working at the National Institutes of Health and helping save countless lives, has retired so he can rest. However, Dr. Fauci doesn’t have time to retire.

Last month, Fauci joined Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases as a Distinguished Professor. He was also appointed to the university’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

“I’ve also been busy lecturing and writing my memoir, and since I’ve been out of the NIH for seven months, I’m not following the ins and outs of the government, but I am paying attention to what’s going on with PEPFAR,” he tells me.

PEPFAR is the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was signed into law 20 years ago this summer by President George W. Bush. It serves as a conduit to providing HIV medications to individuals in impoverished nations who would otherwise lack access to these drugs.

When I spoke to Fauci a couple years ago on the 40th anniversary of the discovery of HIV, he cited the opportunity to be the architect of the program as one of his greatest achievements. "It is the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history," he told me. "It's been an honor to help lead this. I really value my participation in this program that has already saved 15-18 million (in 2021) lives around the world."

“PEPFAR impact has been truly remarkable,” Fauci told me during our phone call Friday evening. "It is one of this country’s greatest global health policies in history. It’s been a resounding success, and has saved at least 25 million lives worldwide and it provides antiretroviral treatments for over 20 million people worldwide.”

However, groundless claims from anti-abortion activists have put the program in jeopardy. Conservative and anti-abortion groups sent a letter to Republicans in Congress who are responsible for PEPFAR’s reauthorization. The letter said that PEPFAR funds are “used by nongovernmental organizations that promote abortions and push a radical gender ideology abroad.” They provided no evidence to back their claim.

Also, the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation released a report that said Congress needs to “reassess” PEPFAR. The report claimed, “The Biden Administration has misused the program as a well-funded vehicle to promote its domestic radical social agenda overseas, as it has done with other foreign aid programs.” This so-called report also did not provide any proof.

As a result, Republicans in Congress are threatening not to reauthorize the program.

“The idea that this program would be interrupted, despite its overwhelming success, is unfortunate,” Fauci said. “There’s a real danger to associate the program with cultural issues as opposed to scientific ones that clearly show PEPFAR is saving lives.”

“It seems paradoxical that abortion rights groups who fight for life want to interfere with a program that has saved millions of lives,” Fauci pointed out. “If the program doesn’t function, lives aren’t saved, millions of them.”

Instead of castigating the program, shouldn't these groups, as well as all Americans, be celebrating the 20th anniversary of this milestone? “What’s ironic is that it was signed into law by a conservative Republican President, and it is without question George W. Bush’s greatest achievement. It took years to put together, in a bipartisan way, and it is one of the world’s signature global health initiatives. The thought of it not being authorized is not only dangerous, but disastrous.”