Tag Archives: GOP majority

national news

Will majority be worth it?

Let’s presume that the conventional wisdom holds up in the wake of the 2022 midterm election, which is that Republicans are going to win a majority of the House seats and will be in charge when the next Congress convenes in January.

What I am going to wonder aloud is whether the House GOP leadership team can govern. Will it be able to control its own members, let alone dictate the flow of legislation that comes from the lower legislative chamber?

I doubt it. Seriously!

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy was thought to be a shoo-in for speaker if Republicans took command. Even that’s in doubt today.

McCarthy has pissed off the right-wing Freedom Caucus wing of his House members. He also has angered the establishment wing of those who call themselves Republicans. The MAGA lovers wanted a much larger majority; they won’t get it. The establishment wing of the GOP wants to work with Democrats on legislation; that likely won’t happen, either, given Democrats’ anger at McCarthy over his back-tracking on Donald Trump’s role in the 1/6 insurrection.

I keep seeing models suggesting Republicans will win 219 House seats; Democrats are slated to occupy 216 of them. The majority party needs 218 to take command. A one-seat cushion isn’t very, um, secure … you know?

This all makes the GOP majority practically worthless.

The current speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, is holding out hope that her party can squeak through by retaining a majority. That’s brave talk from a battle-tested political warrior.

Even though I am sitting in the peanut gallery, the cheap-seat view tells me that Republicans are going to eke out their cherished majority. However, I am going to wonder whether it’s worth having.

As the saying goes, elections do have consequences. We’re going to get a good look at how those consequences play out once the new Congress takes over.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Not so fast on the high fives, POTUS’s legal team

Conservative media personalities and other defenders of Donald John Trump have been back-slapping and high fiving the legal team that represented the current president in the Senate impeachment trial that appears to be barreling toward acquittal.

The Senate has rejected in a 51-49 vote a motion to allow new witnesses and other evidence into the Senate to testify about the case against the president.

It is true that Trump’s legal eagles seem to have won the argument on the floor of the Senate. How much of a hurdle, though, was it for them to clear? Not much of one, if you want to know my view on it.

To me the result was equally clear. Trump abused the power of his office by seeking foreign government political help and obstructed Congress by ordering his staff to ignore congressional subpoenas. The president should be removed from office!

Republicans control the Senate. To a person the GOP majority has stood behind Trump. POTUS legal team hasn’t changed a single mind. It hasn’t needed to turn any votes in their favor.

In fairness, I need to suggest that there might be a Democratic senator or two (or three) who could vote to acquit the president. They likely will be senators who represent states that Trump won in 2016 and they might be senators who are up for election or re-election this year. I present to you Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Doug Jones of Alabama and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Were they persuaded by the presentation given by Trump’s team? Allow me a brief chuckle. I doubt it. They were swayed by the political dynamics back home.

So here we are. We’re going go get an up/down vote on Wednesday. The deal is done. The result, if you’ll excuse the cliché, has been “baked in.”

Republicans will stand with Donald Trump while Democrats will stand with the Constitution of the United States.

national news, political news

WSJ gives congressional GOP a swift kick

When the men and women who run Capitol Hill — the Republicans — lose The Wall Street Journal, then they’ve lost their most critical media ally.

I’m not suggesting the WSJ has abandoned the GOP majority, but the paper’s conservative editorial page — one of the best opinion pages in the country — turns on you, then you’d better pay attention.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/homeland-security-shutdown-cliff-republicans-wall-street-journal-115651.html?hp=b2_l1

I’ve long admired the WSJ editorial writers for the way they express themselves. I disagree with the paper’s editorial policy, but few editorial pages say it better than the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ editors are angry at what they’re calling the GOP “Cliff Marchers,” the faction of Republicans who are intent on making some political point than in any actually governing.

As Politico reports about the WSJ’s scolding: “House Republicans refuse to fund (Department of Homeland Security) without forcing the president to dismantle the changes (in Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration), while Senate Republicans do not believe they can win the standoff. The Senate voted last week to fund the department through the end of the fiscal year without altering the president’s immigration orders, but the House has not yet agreed to take up the bill.”

The WSJ writes: “Republicans need to do some soul searching about the purpose of a Congressional majority, including whether they even want it.”

The Journal argues that Congress should go fund DHS and move on to bigger issues, such as the budget. The paper believes the president’s immigration order — in which he delays deportation of millions of undocumented residents — will be settled by the courts.

It’s good advice. Are you listening, GOP members of Congress? Get busy and start governing.