Man with conscience get drummed out of Congress

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Never mind

"After much reflection, I've concluded that circumstances don't lend themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore I will not be a candidate," he tweeted Saturday.

  CNN

Yeah, I think you already knew that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Go for it, Justin

He'd probbly pull off Bernie voters as well as Trump voters.  On balance, I think he'd pull off more Trump voters,  but who knows?  I don't want an Amash presidency, but I also don't want a Biden one.  Either one is preferable to Trump, however.

You gotta dance with the one that brung ya*

Unanimous corporatism in Congress. After a day of performative fussing and fighting over partisan particulars in the COVID-19 relief bill, U.S. senators last night passed—96 to 0—the $2 trillion spending measure largely unchanged.

The part getting the most attention is the direct payments: $1,200 each for single Americans who made under $75,000, dual-income married couples who made under $150,000, or single-income heads of household who made under $112,500 in annual adjusted gross income in 2019. Pro-rated amounts will go to single filers making up to $99,000 and couples making up to $198,000. Families get an additional $500 for each child age 16 and under. (More details here.)

  Reason

What happens to people who don't file a tax return (or didn't file one last year)? The don't exist?

But the 880-page bill is brimming with bailouts for government-favored corporations, too.

Of course it is.

"Neither Congress nor the Treasury secretary should be picking winners and losers," [Libertarian-leaning Rep. Justin Amash (I–Mich.)] tweeted on Tuesday. "Corporate welfare is not only unjust but also reflects government conceit. Only consumers, not politicians, can appropriately determine which companies deserve to succeed."

Not in this country, Justin.

If Democrats and Republicans are going to spend $2 trillion, "then the best way to do it, by far, is a direct cash transfer that otherwise keeps government out of the way," he wrote yesterday.

It was never going to happen.

The Libertarian Party has been appealing to the House to fix the Senate's mess.

They won't. Most Democrats are corporate-owned, too. And they wouldn't want the backlash of being blamed for holding up the relief package. Still, it's imperative that we flip the Senate in November and that Kentucky ditch Mitch McConnell regardless.

*I miss you, Molly Ivins.  These are the times you were made for.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Let it trickle up for a change

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another Congressman thinks the GOP Senators haven't heard the existing evidence

Senator John Kennedy said this as a fact earlier.

I don't put a lot of stock in what Kennedy says, but Amash is echoing the sentiment.

Also, there's that saying about it being hard to get someone to acknowledge something that their job depends upon them not knowing.  GOP Congress critters need to keep their heads in the sand for plausible deniability of what their party is doing to this country.  They have to avoid knowing the truth in order to justify themselves.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Locked down in the machine

Update on Florida's Francis Rooney calling it quits:

The headlines wrote themselves. As Rolling Stone declared, “GOP Congressman Open to Impeachment on Friday, Retires on Saturday.”

[...]

Venting privately about the president has become a hallowed pastime in Republican-controlled Washington, a sort of ritualistic release for those lawmakers tasked with routinely defending the indefensible, and Rooney had long indulged without consequence.

[...]

But as summer turned to fall, Rooney wasn’t just bitching and complaining anymore. He was talking about impeachment. And he was talking not in a manner that was abstract or academic, but concrete and ominous. Initially in one-on-one conversations, and then in larger group settings, Rooney cautioned his colleagues that there could be no turning a blind eye to the fact pattern emerging from Trump’s relationship with Ukraine.

[...]

All of a sudden, the once-invisible congressman was the subject of constant surveillance. Rooney could go nowhere, say nothing, without the eyes of the party on him. House Republican leaders, having been made aware of Rooney’s agitating, deputized lawmakers to monitor the malcontent. The White House—both its political team and its legislative affairs shop—did likewise. Before long, the president himself was briefed on the threat from Rooney.

[...]

All the president’s allies agreed Rooney was a problem. But there was no obvious solution. The congressman had yet to say anything menacing about Trump in public; taking some type of punitive measure against him, be it a closed-door belittling or a presidential tweet-lashing, would be strange and possibly counterproductive.

[...]

Ultimately, Republican leaders in Washington and Florida settled on a simple course of action. They would beat Rooney at his own game, doing nothing to undermine him openly but instead orchestrating a whisper campaign aimed at sowing doubts about his devotion to the president. The focal point would be Florida’s 19th, Rooney’s bloody red district, which Trump had carried by 22 points. That way, if and when Rooney broke ranks, the uprising back home would appear instant and organic. The recoil wouldn’t just scare Rooney straight; it would provide a cautionary tale for any Republican tempted to follow his lead.

Rooney knew the trap was being laid, but he didn’t bother avoiding it. On Friday, October 18, the congressman appeared on CNN and said there was “clear” evidence of a quid pro quo based on acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s own description of events. Asked whether he was ruling out voting for impeachment, Rooney replied, “I don’t think you can rule anything out until you know all the facts.”

[...]

[A]s though a switch had been flipped, Rooney found himself under siege.

“The blowback from the people in Southwest Florida was something. I mean, I had people down here in the local Republican leadership mad at me, yelling at me, telling me nothing should happen to make me waver in my support of Donald Trump. Nothing,” he recalls in an interview.

[...]

The intensity of that criticism—and the threats on his career, made implicit and explicit by Florida Republicans in the hours after his CNN appearance—left him with an inescapable conclusion: There would be no coming back to Congress. He had mulled retirement in the months prior, but now the decision was being made for him. The very next day, appearing on Fox News, Rooney announced he would not seek reelection in 2020.

[...]

The implication was clear: Any Republican who so much as flirted with impeachment would no longer have a home in the party.

Justin Amash seems to have weathered it okay. He's no longer a Republican, but he's still in Congress.

Two weeks later, when the House passed a resolution advancing the impeachment inquiry, all 196 of the House Republicans on the floor voted as a bloc against the measure. It was a display of solidarity and a reassertion of supremacy; once again, everyone in the party had fallen in line behind Trump. To the president’s delight, as he watched the proceedings on television, the “nays” even included the troublemaker Rooney, who, Trump concluded, had tucked his tail between his legs and done as he was told.

[...]

In fact, Rooney says now, his vote was in disapproval of the Democrats’ process—not a display of confidence in Trump’s innocence. “That was just a procedural vote,” the congressman says, explaining that he studied the House rules that governed Bill Clinton’s impeachment and was prepared to vote for similar guidelines had Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought them to the floor this time around. “I’m not going to show my hand on impeachment until we get all the facts out there.”

  Politico

And that's the gamble Republicans are taking. If they alienate any members, and the trial goes through the Senate before elections in 2020, they could lose some Republican votes. Probably not the necessary 20 for conviction, of course.

Rooney insists he’s not alone. It was only after he spoke candidly on CNN, he says, that other members began confiding in him that they, too, were losing confidence in their defense of the president. “There are a lot of Republicans who feel varying levels of disquiet at the idea of using American foreign policy power to gin up domestic political investigations,” Rooney says.

But apparently none brave enough to do anything about it.

From dozens of interviews with GOP lawmakers, congressional aides and White House staffers over the past month, it’s evident that Rooney is right: There is a sizable number of Republican senators and representatives who believe Trump’s actions are at least theoretically impeachable, who believe a thorough fact-finding mission is necessary, who believe his removal from office is not an altogether radical idea.

[...]

He could lose a stray vote in the House, maybe even two, when articles of impeachment come to the floor. He could fare even worse in the Senate, knowing that more than a few of the 53 Republican jurors might be tempted etch their names in the history books at his expense. None of this will alter his standing atop the party; none of this will change the fact that he is president through January 2021 and perhaps beyond.

And yet, Trump cannot stand to be embarrassed—and there is no greater embarrassment to a president than being impeached, much less with the abetting of his own tribe. There is an urgency, then, not only to limit defections but eliminate them. The administration, working in concert with its allies on Capitol Hill, has been hard at work identifying potential turncoats in the party and monitoring their activities to catch any sign of slippage.

Stalinesque, you might say. It must feel that way in the GOP Congress these days, run by lunatics and enforcers.

To understand Trump’s fixation on the word loyalty is to understand that his interpretation, at least in a political context, means submission, subservience, subjugation.

[...]

Trump has been preoccupied with questions of treachery within his newfound tribe. When we sat for an interview early this year for my book, American Carnage, the president returned time and again to this notion of fidelity. Because he had returned the GOP to power, Trump intimated, allowing Republicans to claim victories on all matter of policy and personnel, they owed him their unwavering support.

“The Republican Party was in big trouble,” Trump told me. “I brought the party back. The Republican Party is strong. The Republican Party is strong.” He then added, “They’ve got to remain faithful. And loyal.”

[...]

Rarely does the president become more wrathful, his allies say, than when he learns of a Republican criticizing him, particularly if done in a public setting. And even when he hears of an internecine attack launched behind closed doors, Trump has been known to fly into a rage, calling people who were in the room to grill them for details on the alleged act of duplicity.

"Human scum," he called "Never Trumpers" in an October 23 tweet.

Given the history of hostilities between them, and [Mitt] Romney’s obvious belief that Trump has abused his power and used the office of the presidency for his personal gain, it’s easy to understand why the junior senator from Utah is universally viewed as the likeliest Republican apostate on the question of impeachment, in either chamber.

What’s harder to understand is why Trump would choose to deploy the phrase “human scum!” in describing disloyal Republicans—a rhetorical eyebrow-raiser, even for him—without making clear to whom he was referring or what specifically was provoking his fury.

[...]

[C]onsidering the historic nature of the converging events of late October—the Ukraine quid pro quo, the forsaking of the Kurds, the decision (later reversed) to host the G-7 at Trump’s luxury golf resort in Florida—and the unprecedented outcry heard among Republicans, the “human scum!” outburst provides a valuable window into a presidency in crisis. That Trump was not singling out Romney, the president’s team began to sense, reflected a pair of interrelated realities: first, that the Utah senator was a lost cause; and second, that Trump suddenly had other senators to worry about.

[...]

Nobody on Capitol Hill believes the number of GOP mutineers could even remotely approach the 20 needed to convict Trump in a Senate trial. All the same, there is a recognition among the president’s allies that his reelection campaign, not to mention his place in history, could be crippled by even the smallest clique of Republicans banding together and issuing what would be an institution-defining rebuke.

[...]

[I]t wouldn’t shock anyone if Susan Collins, the centrist from Maine, turned on Trump once and for all. She has never thought highly of the president. She has exhausted the polite ways in which to articulate her belief that he is unfit for office. She, like Romney, called Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president “appalling.”

Nor would it surprise Republicans if Lisa Murkowski, the other quasi-independent in the GOP caucus, turned on Trump. The Alaska senator has been a chronic problem for the White House. Whether it was her vote against the GOP’s Obamacare repeal proposal, or her persistent abuse of the administration for its handling of a 35-day government shutdown, or her go-it-alone refusal to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Murkowski has shown a unique capacity for afflicting the president.

He has female problems.

In late October, it was those three GOP senators—Romney, Collins and Murkowski—who conspicuously refused to co-sponsor Lindsey Graham’s resolution condemning the House of Representatives for its impeachment inquiry.

[...]

[T]hree is more than zero. And what if it’s more?

Sounds like Francis Rooney makes it four at least.

What if Lamar Alexander, the retiring statesman from Tennessee who has struggled to mask his disillusionment with Trump’s destruction of norms, decides to go out with a bang?

What if Cory Gardner, whose reelection in Colorado seems destined to be doomed by the top of the ticket, thinks his next act in politics depends on establishing distance from Trump?

What if Ben Sasse or Pat Toomey or Rob Portman, all thoughtful conservatives in the Burkean tradition, reach a point where they feel compelled to meet a moment on behalf of their party and their country and perhaps even their constituents, as upset as many of them might be?

None of this might seem realistic. Yet these are precisely the scenarios being bandied about by the president’s team—and on occasion, by Trump himself.

[...]

It’s never ideal for a party to lose control of Congress—particularly not in a hyperpartisan, zero-sum atmosphere where gridlock is guaranteed. But for Trump, the silver lining of the GOP’s drubbing in 2018 was a party, purged of many of its gadflies, that emerged looking and sounding a lot more like him. This was true in the Senate, where the president shed the baggage of Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, but even more so in the House, where, as former Congressman Mark Sanford says, “the conference got a whole lot Trumpier.”

[...]

What the House GOP was left with, entering 2019, was a smaller, more demographically homogeneous and ideologically concentrated membership. There was no longer a list of mischief-makers for the White House to track. In reality, there was one remaining voice of consistent dissent: Justin Amash. When the Michigan Republican announced his decision to leave the GOP on July 4, declaring his “independence” from Trump’s party, the president and congressional leaders celebrated. His takeover of the House GOP was all but complete.

By contrast, when Texas Congressman Will Hurd announced his retirement a few weeks later, there was cause for concern in Trump’s orbit. [...] With Hurd no longer constrained by the considerations of running for reelection on the same ticket as Trump, the White House feared, he might feel liberated to step out on impeachment. The congressman has been under the administration’s microscope ever since, his public statements and private interactions parsed for clues.

[...]

In an interview, Hurd, a former CIA officer who sits on the Intelligence Committee, does not sound like a man ready to impeach the president.

[...]

Noting how Trump can be impetuous and indelicate, Hurd stresses nonetheless that every elected official’s threshold for impeachment will vary. “For me, impeachment is a clear violation of the law,” he says. “And I haven’t seen anything — yet — that looks like a clear violation of the law.”

Seriously?

And please read the Constitution, Mr. Hurd. Impeachment is not defined as a clear violation of the law. Impeachment is a Constitutional remedy for a president who abuses the power of his office.

Amash, who voted for the House inquiry to proceed, is wrestling with that same question. “I think we’ve seen plenty of evidence that the president is abusing his power, abusing the office of the presidency,” he says. The independent congressman understands that his former GOP comrades disagree, or at least say they disagree, with him on that front. What he wonders is what, if anything, could change their minds; whether even a smoking cannon of misconduct linked directly to Trump could convince them of their responsibility to impeach.

[...]

“The administration’s approach with a lot of things is to put out really bad information and then pretend like it’s not bad. It’s sort of a different way of covering up. It’s gaslighting—just put out the bad stuff and then tell everyone it’s not bad, and that you’re shocked that anyone would think it’s bad. ... Trump understands that. He’s figured out that he can say and do pretty much anything and people will cover for him.”

[...]

There is, however, one conservative who continues to be monitored closely: Chip Roy.

A former federal prosecutor who made a name for himself in Washington as Ted Cruz’s original Senate chief of staff, Roy is a true believer who was sharply critical of Trump throughout 2016. When Roy decided to run for Congress in 2018, in fact, he was reminded to scrub his social media of attacks on the president. With so many of his Freedom Caucus colleagues springing to the president’s defense in recent months, Roy’s silence has been a subject of growing concern.

[...]

“I have not associated myself with any of the defenses of my colleagues on this issue, because I’m going to make my own assessment and frame it however the facts present themselves,” he says. “I’ve got my own views on this, and I don’t necessarily believe the arguments I’ve heard to date have been the best arguments, because people are just firing on the fly without thinking it through.”

[...]

He explains that he has been marking up hundreds of pages of documents and building a prosecutor’s case file from which to draw his ultimate conclusions. Unlike some of his colleagues, Roy says, he sees “a line” that needs to be enforced as a matter of precedent. It’s just that Trump, from everything he’s gathered thus far, has not crossed it.

Does he literally have to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue?

Trump and his team [are also keeping] a close eye on certain individuals, such as Adam Kinzinger and John Shimkus and Fred Upton, who fit the description of the centrist, traditional, Bush-friendly Republican who have been known to voice their displeasure with the president. And indeed, both Kinzinger and Shimkus leaped off the radar in recent weeks due to their broadsides against Trump. But their invective had more to do with abandoning the Kurds than pressuring the Ukrainians.

[...]

If disgruntled Republicans didn’t sign up for impeachment amid the swirl of betraying the Kurds, admitting a Ukrainian quid pro quo, soliciting China’s help investigating the Bidens and self-dealing to the Trump family on a scale of many millions of dollars, well, it’s tough to imagine them finding reason to do so now.

[...]

[Patrick McHenry, who served in previous Congresses as the House GOP’s chief deputy whip], renowned for his read on the instincts of his fellow House Republicans, predicted that not a single one will vote for impeachment.

Amash made the same prediction. So did Hurd. And Roy. And every other House Republican lawmaker interviewed for this story, including those who spoke on condition of anonymity.

[...]

Even Rooney, the retiring Florida Republican who remains on a political island all his own, admitted he doesn’t expect a single Republican defection in the House. That is, of course, unless he takes it upon himself.

“The whole thing is one step removed from the president—it’s [Rudy] Giuliani, it’s [Gordon] Sondland,” Rooney says, referring to the president’s lawyer and EU ambassador, who stand accused of orchestrating a shadow foreign policy to pressure Ukraine into investigating the Bidens.

Which is the obvious work-around to keep the president protected. It's a constant in American presidencies. It even has a name: plausible deniability. We'll see how they all feel after Gordon Sondland testifies, if, that is, Sondland doesn't just take the fifth or refuse to answer questions.

“So, the question is, is that enough of an abuse of power to remove the president from office? I don’t know. I need to think about that a lot more. I haven’t made up my mind.”

He adds, “I’ve got to be able to look at myself in the mirror, and I’ve got to be able to look at my kids and my friends and family, and know that what I did was right.”

I expect Mr. Rooney will be able to look in the mirror and at his kids and friends and family with no problem if he stands strong in the GOP machine, but hiding behind plausible deniability should prevent it.

Some Senate Republicans who are frequent allies of President Trump have called for a motion to speedily shut down an impeachment trial, a move that would require a simple majority of 51 votes. Senators Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, David Perdue have all said they back such a motion.

[...]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday shut down an option floated by some Republicans to quickly dismiss articles of impeachment against President Trump, saying he fully expects the matter to go to trial in the Senate.

“I don’t think there’s any question that we have to take up the matter. The rules of impeachment are very clear, we’ll have to have a trial,” McConnell said as the first public impeachment hearing was underway before the House Intelligence Committee.

  National Review

And here's a possible factor in how emboldened Republican Senators might be when that trial begins:  Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently missed Supreme Court arguments reportedly due to a stomach virus.  Her health is an issue.  Should Ruth be unable to hold her position throughout the next year, and Trump gets to nominate another right-winger to the court who gets approved, McConnell may feel secure enough that Trump has outlived his usefulness and turn the GOP's senators loose. 

That's admittedly a long shot, but we'll see.  Trump could easily become a bigger liability to the party than asset in a year's time.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Justin Amash is giving up on the Republican Party

Your asshole president is feeling his oats this morning ahead of his big 4th of July party.



He's talking about Justin Amash, of course.  They only Republican Congress critter with a shred of integrity.  Too bad.  But maybe, being a libertarian, he's going to run on another ticket.

"The Republican Party, I believed, stood for limited government, economic freedom and individual liberty — principles that had made the American Dream possible for my family," he wrote. "In recent years, though, I've become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it. The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions."

  CNN

He is dead on there.

The move also upends the state of play in Michigan's 3rd District, where several Republican candidates have announced their plans to challenge him for his current congressional seat in the GOP primary.

As an independent, Amash wouldn't have to compete in the primary to run in the general election, although during a recent town hall in Grand Rapids, he told constituents it is "very difficult" to run as an independent in Michigan, due to straight-ticket voting and existing requirements for third-party candidates to get on the ballot.

[...]

"True to [George] Washington's fears, Americans have allowed government officials, under assertions of expediency and party unity, to ignore the most basic tenets of our constitutional order: separation of powers, federalism and the rule of law," Amash said. "The result has been the consolidation of political power and the near disintegration of representative democracy."

[...]

The op-ed comes as Trump is embarking on his 2020 reelection campaign and it solidifies Amash's role as a leading anti-Trump conservative, representing a group that in 2016 coalesced under a loose "Never Trump" banner.

Over the past several months, Amash has repeatedly refused to rule out a potential presidential bid. Such a campaign would reshape the presidential election: Amash has a national following among Libertarians, and he could draw support from younger, conservative voters who are uncomfortable with Trump.

And put a wrench in Democrats' plans, too.

He told CNN in March that he never stops thinking about such possibilities "because there is a big problem with the current two-party system we have, and someone has to shake it up."

"Now, is it possible for anyone to shake it up and make a difference?" he asked at the time. "I don't know."

This is a tricky time to try, but I won't argue. He's absolutely right about the two-party system.

Amash has always been the odd man out among his Republican peers. He has long been known for an unusual willingness to split with the party line on controversial issues including federal surveillance powers, foreign policy and congressional procedure. That divide only widened in the Trump era.

In June, Amash stepped down from the House Freedom Caucus, a group of roughly three dozen hardline conservatives who have become some of the President's loudest defenders over the past two years.

"I have the highest regard for them and they're my close friends," Amash told CNN shortly after he informed the HFC board of his decision. "I didn't want to be a further distraction for the group."

Amash, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, stopped attending weekly meetings long before he formally cut ties, after clashing with members for months over differing priorities. Leading up to the 2018 election, he urged his colleagues to turn back from the path they were going down, delivering impassioned speeches about how the group was "losing sight of our purpose and our principles."

[...]

During the 116th Congress, Amash has regularly sided with Democrats on the House Oversight Committee amid investigations into the White House, even as Republicans on the panel have stuck firmly to playing defense for the President.

He recently voted to authorize a subpoena for White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after she refused to testify about her alleged violations of the Hatch Act, and he made headlines in February when he asked former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen questions designed to uncover potential wrongdoing by Trump during his appearance before the committee.

Which is when he came to my attention. The only Republican who asked any questions attempting to actually get any information.

Amash was also the only Republican to cosponsor the House Democratic resolution earlier this year disapproving of Trump's use of emergency powers to seize funds from the Defense Department for the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

[...]

"Clearly, things that violate the public trust are impeachable," Amash said to applause during the Grand Rapids town hall. "I think it's really important that we do our job as Congress. That we would not allow misconduct to go undeterred."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Washington said of partisanship, in one of America’s most prescient addresses: “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. …

“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

[...]

These are consequences of a mind-set among the political class that loyalty to party is more important than serving the American people or protecting our governing institutions. The parties value winning for its own sake, and at whatever cost. Instead of acting as an independent branch of government and serving as a check on the executive branch, congressional leaders of both parties expect the House and Senate to act in obedience or opposition to the president and their colleagues on a partisan basis.

In this hyperpartisan environment, congressional leaders use every tool to compel party members to stick with the team, dangling chairmanships, committee assignments, bill sponsorships, endorsements and campaign resources. As donors recognize the growing power of party leaders, they supply these officials with ever-increasing funds, which, in turn, further tightens their grip on power.

  WaPo

Look more closely. We're there already.

Preserving liberty means telling the Republican Party and the Democratic Party that we’ll no longer let them play their partisan game at our expense.

Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party. No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it.

Oh, snap!

Will Justin Amash run for President in 2020?

The libertarian-leaning tea party congressman said in January that the idea was “more on my radar now because everybody keeps asking about it.” He told the Lions of Liberty podcast, “I just think it’s important that we offer some alternative.”

And Amash’s motivations would go further than just Trump. He has decried the “two-party duopoly” in American politics — a pregnant statement from a man who ran for and serves in office as a Republican — and he has criticized his own tea party wing of the party for selling out its principles.

“It turns out a lot of them were not in favor of limiting the size of government, they were just opposed to the president at the time,” said Amash, who helped found the tea party-aligned House Freedom Caucus. “The tea party is largely gone. It was replaced with nationalism and protectionism and the general philosophy of the party now under Trump.”

  WaPo

It was co-opted by the GOP.

Amash has also departed from his party on some big issues, including Trump’s border wall national emergency, his travel ban and even Trump’s nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

If you think my job is to support the president one hundred percent, then you don’t understand what it means to be a representative in Congress. My job is to support the Constitution one hundred percent and to represent all the people of my district by protecting their rights.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) February 28, 2019

[...]

[T]he highest share the Libertarian Party has ever received in a presidential election is the 3 percent that Gary Johnson got in 2016. But the party that year had ballot access in all 50 states. Assuming it gets that again, Amash would have a real chance to expand upon Johnson’s vote share. And whatever you thought of Johnson’s policies, he was not that compelling a candidate; Amash, by contrast, is widely regarded as a smart and principled lawmaker. It’s not difficult to see him doing better than Johnson.

[...]

Even if Amash didn’t take much of the vote nationwide, if he overperformed in his home state [of Michigan], he could be depriving Trump of its 16 electoral votes, which would be a significant strike against Trump winning reelection. And it’s not difficult to see Amash’s more tea-party-oriented politics appealing to the limited number of disaffected Republicans in other states as well. Trump has pretty unified support in today’s GOP, but there are also signs that it’s somewhat soft. And given that as much as 56 percent of the country says they won’t vote for Trump, Trump cannot afford to have many would-be Republican voters peeled off by a third-party candidate.

Which is why His Lardship is calling Amash a loser. He'll get exponentially worse if Amash runs.

Amash has to know he would be in for some hard times if he ran, given that Republicans would instantly view him as a potential spoiler. And his comments thus far do not suggest someone who is strongly leaning toward running.

But he’s also the kind of politician who seems willing to put himself on the line to make a point about principles.

Even if he decides to forgo the primary battle, an outcast Amash could still stick a wrench in the spokes. He could run for president as an independent and campaign only in Michigan. Trump beat Clinton there in 2016 by a mere 10,704 votes out of more than 4.5 million cast.

  The Bulwark

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Amash digging in

We know him as the only Republican congress person with a shred of integrity

Michigan Rep. Justin Amash became the first Republican lawmaker to declare that President Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses and that Attorney General William Barr “deliberately misrepresented” special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Amash, whose libertarian views often put him at odds with Trump and his fellow Republicans, posted a series of tweets Saturday afternoon outlining positions that even some Democrats have been unwilling to embrace — an extraordinary development that comes as Democratic leaders face increasing pressure from progressives to launch impeachment proceedings.

“Contrary to Barr’s portrayal, Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment,” Amash wrote, arguing that lawmakers have become too afraid of using impeachment to deter presidential misconduct.

“Impeachment, which is a special form of indictment, does not even require probable cause that a crime (e.g., obstruction of justice) has been committed; it simply requires a finding that an official has engaged in careless, abusive, corrupt, or otherwise dishonorable conduct,” Amash wrote.

  Politico

In Trump's case, all of the above.

“In comparing Barr’s principal conclusions, congressional testimony, and other statements to Mueller’s report, it is clear that Barr intended to mislead the public about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s analysis and findings,” Amash said, adding that “Barr’s misrepresentations are significant but often subtle, frequently taking the form of sleight-of-hand qualifications or logical fallacies, which he hopes people will not notice.”

Despite Amash’s frequent opposition to Trump, he is one of the most conservative members of Congress and sits on the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating Trump for alleged financial crimes.

[...]

Amash argued that Congress is failing to live up to its constitutional duties in part because of “extreme partisanship” that has worsened under Trump.

“While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct,” Amash said. “Our system of checks and balances relies on each branch’s [sic] jealously guarding its powers and upholding its duties under our Constitution. When loyalty to a political party or to an individual trumps loyalty to the Constitution, the Rule of Law — the foundation of liberty — crumbles.”

[...]

“America’s institutions depend on officials to uphold both the rules and spirit of our constitutional system even when to do so is personally inconvenient or yields a politically unfavorable outcome. Our Constitution is brilliant and awesome; it deserves a government to match it,” he concluded.

UPDATE 5/19:

He heard.






I think we all know who the loser is.  Liar, ignoramus.

UPDATE:



UPDATE 5/21:

Michigan rally

NOTICEABLY ABSENT from Trump’s events Thursday night in Michigan: REP. JUSTIN AMASH (R-MICH.), who represents Grand Rapids. The airport, where Trump landed, and the arena, where he rallied, are both in Amash’s district.

  Politico

I have no doubt they chose Grand Rapids for the very fact that it's Amash's district.

Also...





...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Dissenters will be targeted

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Delusional Donald

Or, more likely, just a liar.

President Donald Trump huddled with House Republicans on Tuesday night, ostensibly to rally support for the compromise immigration bill being pushed for a vote Thursday by Speaker Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP leadership team. But Trump had something else on his mind: Mark Sanford.

Trump asked whether the South Carolina Republican, who lost a primary last week largely due to his willingness to publicly criticize Trump, was in the room. Upon being told Sanford wasn't in attendance, Trump ran him down as a "nasty guy," according to sources in the room.

Trump asked whether the South Carolina Republican, who lost a primary last week largely due to his willingness to publicly criticize Trump, was in the room. Upon being told Sanford wasn't in attendance, Trump ran him down as a "nasty guy," according to sources in the room.

  CNN

Now they need to stand up to the lying monster and take him down.  Until then, I have no sympathy.

UPDATE:

Three House Republicans ripped President Donald Trump on Wednesday for saying that lawmakers laughed and applauded when he criticized Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican who lost his re-election bid after the president blasted him on Twitter hours before the polls closed last week in the state’s primary.

[...]

Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) also denied Trump’s claim that Republicans were cheering about his Sanford comments at the GOP closed-door conference on Tuesday night.

“Categorically false,” Costello tweeted in response to the president’s post.

Costello announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection, in large part because of the partisan political environment. He has also said that all he does “is answer questions about Donald Trump rather than health insurance or tax policy.”

Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) told POLITICO on Wednesday that Trump’s tweet was wrong, and that there were “crickets” when he made the comment.

[...]

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) responded that that lawmakers were instead “disgusted.”

  Politico

Regarding Justin Amash

If we all understood that the real boogeyman in our closets has a U.S. government security clearance, and isn’t headquartered in Moscow, Tehran or Pyongyang — distractions at best — we just might start asking questions and scrutinizing the people we send to Washington to protect our interests. We might be less keen to pass bloated defense budgets each year. Maybe our defense budget would only outspend the next 6 countries (combined) rather than the next 8. (Yes. Including China.)

But you can’t say that, or they’ll call you Al Qaeda’s best friend, in the hopes that the people barely listening remember it on Election Day.

Justin Amash can continue speaking his mind and earn the respect of the Millenial generation that’s just starting to buy homes and plant roots and care about Washington politics.

Even those like me, who have no use for Amash’s politics, will appreciate the authenticity behind them and wish we had a fighter on our side with that same fighting spirit. Amash represents his viewpoint well, and in a transparent fashion, explaining the logic behind each vote on his Facebook page. All politicians should.

  Detroit News: James David Dickson

Amen.

Justin Amash Handily Won His Primary

He says he will not even speak to the guy who ran against him (Brian Ellis) until Ellis makes a public apology for the campaign he ran.  He also says he has hopes for the future of a Congress of people who are working for the American people rather than their own aggrandizement.  Check out the details:

White House Equivalent of Scrambling Jets

The Obama administration has forcefully urged the defeat of a legislative measure to curb its wide-ranging collection of Americans' phone records, setting up a showdown with the House of Representatives over domestic surveillance.

[...]

The White House urged House members to vote against a measure from Representative Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, that would stop the NSA siphoning up the telephone records of millions of Americans without suspicion of a crime.

"This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open or deliberative process," said the statement emailed from the White House.

  UK Guardian

Do you suppose they are smug bastards or clueless irony-deficient idiots?

Wyden noted during his speech at the administration-aligned thinktank that he thought the administration had agreed with him when it first came to office about the problems of maintaining widespread secrecy over surveillance.

"In the summer of 2009 I received a written commitment from the justice department and the office of the director of national intelligence that a process would be created to start redacting and declassifying Fisa court opinions so that the American people could have some idea of what the government believes the law allows it to do," Wyden said. "In the last four years exactly zero opinions have been released."

Yes, and we’ve heard SO much about Mr. Wyden’s repeated attempts in those four years to get those opinions released, haven’t we?

The White House – which did not release much information about the secret bulk surveillance efforts it has maintained after inheriting the regime from the Bush administration – portrayed itself on Tuesday as open to a continuing dialogue about the proper limits of surveillance. It framed Amash's amendment as rashly ending the bulk surveillance of phone records, while the administration was committed thoughtfully reforming it, although it has yet to publicly announce any reforms.

"In light of the recent unauthorised disclosures the president has said that he welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens," said the statement attributed to Carney.

"We look forward to continuing to discuss these critical issues with the American people and the Congress."