Just NO

 

Yes, he's far too old.  There are other places for him to serve the greater good.  And also, Clyburn is the reason we had Joe Biden and not Bernie Sanders for president.

These are people who care far more about themselves than the people they are elected to serve.  I hope they lose to a primary challenger.

Out with the old

House Democratic leaders are stepping aside (but not leaving) to allow for a younger generation of leaders. Kudos.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn (S.C.) announced Thursday they will remain in Congress next year but won't seek a leadership position, joining Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who had announced the same decision moments before.

The surprise development clears the way for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), the current chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, to jump several rungs up the leadership ladder to replace Pelosi in the next Congress.

  MSN

Jeffries is unopposed to take the Speaker's place, a testament to Pelosi's ability to keep the diverse group of House Democrats together, and their confidence in Jeffries.

Hoyer, a 42-year veteran of Capitol Hill, said he intends to return to the powerful Appropriations Committee - a post he had held before joining leadership - to work on issues including education, health care and efforts to boost domestic manufacturing.

He will if the Republicans don't kick him off.

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

McCarthy has no spine

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

Another reason Israel banned the Congresswomen

From a Lee Fang (Intercept) email:

After every congressional election, Democratic leaders pressure newly elected lawmakers to visit Israel on a trip paid for and organized by the nonprofit arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the lobby group known as AIPAC.

So after last year’s Democratic victory, I reached out to freshmen lawmakers like Rep. Rashida Tlaib and asked if they would go on AIPAC’s trip.

Many of the incoming freshmen hadn’t yet heard about it, so I shared documents and records of past trips and the one-sided perspective they provided for lawmakers.

Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress, responded to my inquiry by publicly rejecting the AIPAC trip and announcing her own delegation — to give lawmakers an opportunity to see firsthand the conditions in Gaza and hear from a broad range of voices.

  

She didn't want the Potemkin tour.

Most media outlets see congressional support for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza as business as usual and don’t report on it. But reporting on AIPAC’s influence is a vital part of The Intercept’s commitment to expose the powerful forces shaping U.S. foreign policy.

The Intercept broke the story of Tlaib’s delegation last December, making waves within the Democratic caucus. In the same story, which I wrote with Alex Kane, she came out in support of the movement to boycott, sanction and divest from Israel as a response to its ongoing occupation.

This week, the Israeli government made the unprecedented decision to bar Tlaib’s delegation from entering the country, making headlines across the globe — and citing her support for BDS in its decision.

For years, AIPAC’s delegations have gone on with relatively little scrutiny. Human rights experts have long argued that the little-known junkets are a major factor in tilting the scales toward policies that reflect the interests of the Israeli government over Palestinians.

We dug into the numbers, exposing how AIPAC quietly wields power with party leaders and how much the group spends per year to fly lawmakers and staff on luxury junkets to hear from Israeli military and political elites.

This summer, we exposed the political underbelly of the trip, reporting on the strong-arm tactics used by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to pressure new Democrats into accepting AIPAC’s invitation. Had Tlaib’s trip gone forward, we would have been one of the only U.S. outlets accompanying the lawmakers to document the journey.

Well, we can't have that.

Rise and whine

He's tripling down.

I WISH they were destroying the Democratic Party, or moving it substantially left.  That would be a hell of an accomplishment.

They don't think America was wicked in its origins.  They think there were wicked things being done at its origin, and those things are still wicked and need to be changed.  If you disagree, then you ARE racist.

Also, even if destroying the Democratic Party were a bad thing, it's certainly preferable to destroying the country, which is what Trump and his enablers are doing.



And that's just laughable (as is so much of what the Asshole in Chief says).  The Republican Party was less unified on this vote than it's ever been since he took office.  Four Republicans voted with the Democrats.  Has that happened in Trump's term before?   John McCain may have been the last one to do it.  Or Justin Amash, but he wasn't a Republican on this vote.



"Wow!" indeed.  Unlike the AIC, the Speaker was totally exonerated.

“Every single member of this institution should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets,” Pelosi said.

[...]

Republicans called for Pelosi’s words to be removed from the official record, arguing the speaker broke a House parliamentary rule that states lawmakers cannot malign the character of the president.

What ensued was hours of tumult that pushed Democrats and Republicans into their respective corners, caused the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus to “abandon” his duties presiding over the House floor, and that left Pelosi — the House speaker — temporarily banned from speaking on the floor for the rest of the day.

[...]

The mayhem comes down to House Republicans’ refusal to censure Trump, no matter the extremity of his rhetoric. Since his weekend tweets, Trump has not backed down on his comments about Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, saying they “hate” the United States. Republicans have been steadfast in defending him.

[...]

In the middle of a vote, civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) told reporters outside the floor of the House, “The president is a racist. We cannot deny that.”

[...]

Pelosi said the parliamentarian (the official who advises representatives on the House’s rules) had already signed off on her speech, and refused to withdraw her words. Then came the chaos.

[...]

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), the former leader of the Congressional Black Caucus who was presiding over the House floor during Pelosi’s speech, decided to “abandon the chair” out of frustration.

“We don’t ever, ever want to pass up, it seems, an opportunity to escalate,” Cleaver said, chastising the lawmakers on the floor. “I dare anyone to look at any of the footage and see if there was any unfairness. But unfairness is not enough because we just want to fight. I abandon the chair.”

  Vox

Would he also abandon the country?  Dems need to replace him for abandoning his chair.

In Cleaver’s absence, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) took the chair and brought with him a decision — one that surprised his own party. He ruled that Pelosi’s remarks were not in order. In other words, he ruled that lawmakers, including Pelosi, could not say Trump or his tweets were racist.

The truth must never be spoken in the halls of Congress.

Instead, they would go on to say the rhetoric coming out of the White House was. (That’s how closely House members were parsing their words.)

Technically speaking, it's coming out of Trump's Twitter.

The crux of this fight is a line in House parliamentary procedure that “personal abuse, innuendo, or ridicule of the President is not permitted.”

Is that in the spirit of the Constitution handed down from the founders?

As Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Cornell Law School, pointed out in a Twitter thread, this is not actually a standing rule of the House. Instead, it’s a “precedential ruling of the chair” of the House, which is laid out in the Thomas Jefferson Manual of Parliamentary Practice.

I did not know that. So old Tom wasn't one hundred percent in favor of abolishing royalty.

The part of Jefferson’s parliamentary manual that applies to the current situation with Pelosi was adopted from the British Parliament; members of Parliament could not “speak irreverently or seditiously against the King.” Basically, they couldn’t insult the monarch on the floor of Parliament.

[...]

“This manual Thomas Jefferson created for himself when he was vice president,” Chafetz told Vox in an interview. “It was a manual of precedence he thought would be useful from British parliamentary practice.”

Looking forward to becoming president.

Though Jefferson’s parliamentary manual was first used and then later discarded by the US Senate, the House adopted also it in 1837 — and they’ve continued to use it.

[...]

[Hoyer's] ruling [against Pelosi] pushed the House floor to a vote: The body as a whole would have to decide whether Pelosi’s comments calling Trump’s tweet’s racist would be removed from the official record. Democrats stood in lockstep: The motion to strike them failed 190-232. Independent Rep. Justin Amash (MI), who recently left the Republican Party, voted with Democrats.

[...]

Because Hoyer ruled that Pelosi’s words had violated decorum, Pelosi got the punishment House members receive for speaking out of turn: not being allowed to speak on the floor for the rest of the day. That punishment was overturned by a vote, too.

[...]

“The speaker engaged in a small-but-necessary act of legislative civil disobedience,” Rep. Raskin said. “She needed to tell the truth about the president’s remarks.”

[...]

“There is a logic for parliamentary rules to prevent us from engaging in ad hominem attacks, where we attack the personality or character of the president. But Speaker Pelosi didn’t do that. She criticized his remarks. And members of the House have to have the right to do that. To criticize policy and remarks of the president. That’s a necessary implication of the separation of powers.”

Pelosi should be sidelined for refusing to hold Trump accountable for his many actions that render him unfit for office, not for calling him what he is.

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

UPDATE:

Impeach the motherfucker

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that she would sign on to a resolution calling for an investigation into whether President Trump should be impeached, citing the Mueller report in her decisionmaking.

"Mueller’s report is clear in pointing to Congress’ responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the President," she tweeted.

"It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the US Constitution," the freshman representative added. "As such, I’ll be signing onto @RashidaTlaib’s impeachment resolution."

  The Hill

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) on Thursday stepped up his push for impeaching President Trump following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, despite reluctance from House Democratic leaders to go as far.

Green said during a press conference in his Houston district office that Mueller has "given us ample evidence for us to move forward with impeachment," citing 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice outlined in the report.

  The Hill

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday that nothing he saw in special counsel Robert Mueller's report would make seeking to impeach President Trump a "worthwhile" effort "at this point."

Hoyer made the remarks to CNN’s Dana Bash following the Justice Department's release of Mueller’s partially redacted findings in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

  The Hill

No doubt Nancy Pelosi agrees with him.

Get out of the way, Steny.



And that would be impeachment.



No, Adam, it would not be fruitless.  It would show the American people that Congress takes its responsibilities seriously.   It would also keep the crimes and bad acts of Trump in the news for the 2020 campaign cycle. 







Is influencing the investigation not obstruction of justice?







Who says?  Where's that study? 

Also:  It's Obama's fault I took Russia's help because he didn't stop me is is balls.

Green New Deal Democrats

House Democrats who so far have declined to co-sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) Green New Deal bill took, on average, 2.8 times more money from oil and gas PACs and individuals who work in the industry during the 2018 election than those co-sponsoring it, according to a Sludge analysis of campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The bill, which currently has 68 Democratic co-sponsors, calls for a 10-year national mobilization to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, create millions of high-paying jobs, prevent oppression of “frontline and vulnerable communities,” and secure the environment for generations to come.

[...]

While Ocasio-Cortez has received support from many of her fellow freshman Democrats who were elected in the “blue wave” of 2018, as well as some progressives who have been in the House a lot longer, many top-ranking Democrats have either ignored or dismissed her bill.

  Sludge

Due, no doubt, to both their acceptance of corporate money and their resentment of AOC.

“The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said when asked about the bill by reporters earlier this month.

How digustingly dismissive. She knows what it's called. And she knows what's in it.

Pelosi, who is not co-sponsoring the bill, has received $117,065 in campaign contributions from PACs and individuals affiliated with the oil and gas industry over the course of her career.

That really seems like a low number.

PACs in the broader energy and natural resources sector, including those affiliated with Pacific Gas and Electric, Duke Energy, and Occidental Petroleum, have given her $278,700 since 1998.

[...]

Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the majority whip and second highest-ranking Democrat in the House, was involved in a decision to withhold legislative and subpoena powers from the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis—which Democratic leaders created in lieu of the Green New Deal committee that progressive had called for—instead making it a mere “recommendary committee.”

Because we have no clmiate crisis, eh?

Hoyer has taken $409,470 in campaign contributions from PACs and individuals affiliated with the oil and gas industry over the course of his career, including $43,750 in the 2018 election cycle. Hoyer’s top donor in the 2018 election was Exelon, a massive energy company that operates dozens of fossil fuel plants in the U.S.

In all, none of the top 25 Democratic recipients of oil- and gas-linked money in the 2018 election are among the 69 Democrats sponsoring the Green New Deal bill. The average amount of oil and gas money received in the 2018 cycle by Democrats co-sponsoring the Green New Deal bill is $3,288, while the average received by those not co-sponsoring the bill is $10,742.

[...]

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), the House Democrat who received the most oil and gas money in the 2018 election, $165,900, told Politico in November that Democrats should act with moderation on climate change to protect conservatives in the party.

The future of the earth be damned.

Cuellar took the maximum donation of $10,000 from PACs affiliated with several oil and gas interests in the 2018 cycle, including ConocoPhillips, Marathon Petroleum, and Exxon Mobil.

Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which the Green New Deal bill has been referred to, has not thrown his support behind the proposal despite saying that he agrees it’s important to get to a carbon-neutral economy eventually. “The Green New Deal says you can do it in 10 years. I don’t know if that’s technologically feasible…Beyond that, it’s probably not politically feasible,” Palone said recently, according to the Asbury Park Press.

Pallone received $30,900 from oil and gas interests in the 2018 election, including contributions from PACs affiliated with the American Gas Association and Phillips 66.

[...]

Campaign finance isn’t the only area of conflict among Democrats when it comes to energy and natural resources. As Sludge has previously reported, a number of House and Senate members on key environment and energy committees, including Pallone, are personally invested in the fossil fuel industry.

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

UPDATE:









Oooh, that is NOT a good look, Congresswoman.  Should have stopped with the first sentence.

Meanwhile, civilians are dying in Yemen

And the US is supporting Saudi Arabia's continued assault on them.

MSF = Médecins Sans Frontières.  Doctors Without Borders.

A state of emergency has been declared in Yemen's opposition-held capital, Sanaa, according to the local Saba news agency, after a cholera outbreak killed scores of people over the past two weeks.

The health ministry of the Houthi government announced the measure late on Sunday, saying that "the number of casualties surpassed the normal rates, exceeding the capacity of the health system, which has become unable to contain this unprecedented health and environmental disaster".

[...]

More than 11,000 suspected cases of the waterborne disease were reported in the same period in 14 governorates across Yemen, according to Dominik Stillhart, ICRC's director of operations.

The latest figure is a marked increase from the 2,300 cases in 10 governorates announced last week.

[...]

This is the second outbreak of cholera in less than a year in war-torn Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country in the grip of a war between government forces, which are backed by an Arab coalition, and Houthi fighters.

More than 10,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in more than two years of war, which has also destroyed much of the country's infrastructure.

Only a few medical facilities are still functioning and two-thirds of the population are without access to safe drinking water, the UN has said.

[...]

In December, UNICEF said at least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because of malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory-tract infections.In December, UNICEF said at least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because of malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory-tract infections.In December, UNICEF said at least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because of malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory-tract infections.In December, UNICEF said at least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because of malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory-tract infections.In December, UNICEF said at least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because of malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory-tract infections.

[...]

About 17 million of Yemen's 26 million people lack sufficient food and at least three million malnourished children are in "grave peril", the UN has also said.

  alJazeera

And one US Congressman - Ro Khanna, D-California - wants to stop all sales of arms to Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this year, Khanna introduced a resolution that condemned the war and would have used a provision of the War Powers Act to halt U.S. support for Saudi Arabia.

Khanna’s resolution was fervently opposed by House leadership – both Republicans and Democrats. Even though the resolution would cause legal complications for the Trump administration, one of the key figures pushing back against the resolution was Democratic whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

[...]

“We had a huge breakthrough in the House, where the military briefed the leadership staff. And, for the first time, the leadership staff on both parties is acknowledging in a compromise resolution that the United States is involved in refueling Saudi planes and in providing assistance in targeting,” [Khanna told investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill.]

[...]

Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in March 2015, months after Houthi rebels stormed the capital and deposed the Saudi-backed ruler, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Saudi Arabia has since waged a brutal war of collective punishment trying to reinstall Hadi – blockading the desert country and bombing food sources, water infrastructure, schools, and hospitals.

The United States has stood by the Saudis every step of the way – flying refueling missions to help Saudi planes, providing them with targeting intelligence, and sending U.S. warships in the region to help reinforce the blockade. All of this has taken place with no congressional authorization and very little debate in Congress or the national media.

  The Intercept

Par for the course.

[U]nder former President Barack Obama, the United States sold more than $100 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia. [ During his visit to Riyadh, Trump signed a deal promising nearly $110 billion in future weapons sales to the kingdom.

The Difference

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday said there is no comparison between the domestic spying operations under President Obama and former President George W. Bush.

Obama’s program is legal, Hoyer said, whereas Bush’s broke the law.

  The Hill

Oh, yeah. Now, when is Obama going to release that documentation that shows how they are interpreting the law so as to make this shit legal?