You’ve heard all the crazy talk about stripping the 13 GOPers who voted along with the Democrats to get Joe Biden’s trillion dollar infrastructure bill passed. Mitch McConnell was one of the Republican senators who voted for it in the Senate and he calls it a “godsend” but to hear the House GOP website tell it, it’s all part of a socialist takeover.
→ Check out this tweet from the House Republican Conference — it’s been the subject of lots of chatter inside GOP circles during the last few days:
I found that over at Punchbowl News. Now obviously, if they had it up for 17 minutes and decided to delete it, there was some blowback and/or calmer heads prevailed. “Americans won’t forget” is a not-so-veiled threat. So you see how the opposing camps are shaping up, between “godsend” and “socialist wish list.”
The irony here is that it’s a Republican mentality, and always has been, that any kind of a payback to tax payers for their hard earned dollars is a “handout.” Life is supposed to be hardscrabble and God forbid the community cup should be full and overflow with prosperity. No, we’re here on this earth to suffer and if you vote Republican, that’s exactly what you’ll do. Democrats may be lousy on messaging and we may be a divided herd of cats but our policies and bills are lightyears beyond the Republican’ts. For once I heartily concur with Mitch McConnell, the infrastructure bill is a godsend. But look to the crazies to muck it up and trash it. Punchbowl News:
The GOP leadership is bracing for rank-and-file lawmakers to attempt to strip committee assignments from the 13 Republican lawmakers who voted for the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Several of these lawmakers are also ranking members — top Republicans on committees — and those could be at risk, too.
A number of GOP lawmakers were upset by the fact that several of their Republican colleagues voted early for the infrastructure package, helping Democrats cross the majority threshold on a key piece of President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and undermining their party strategy.
Much of the anger is directed at Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), who voted early for the legislation. Katko is the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee. Katko told multiple lawmakers on the House floor that he had seen Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on television talking about the infrastructure bill, and he was voting early.
This isn’t the first controversy involving Katko this year. Katko reached an agreement with Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 commission. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy later rejected the proposal, but 35 House Republicans ended up voting for the bill.
Katko also voted to impeach former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection, and he supported a criminal contempt referral against former Trump aide Steve Bannon for failing to comply with a subpoena from the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.
Beyond Katko, several of the members who voted for the package hold ranking member posts on full committees or subcommittees. For instance, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the dean of the House, is the ranking member of Natural Resources. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and David McKinley (R-W.Va.) hold subcommittee ranking spots.
Three of the 13 are retiring — Reps. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio).
Here’s Mark Meadows two cents, as deranged as you would expect.
Mark Meadows says he would strip the 13 Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill of their committees because it gives Joe Biden a win. pic.twitter.com/pfU9GbCvan
— PatriotTakes ?? (@patriottakes) November 9, 2021
This is deranged. The bottom line here is that Meadows is advocating voting the right-wing extremist tribal ticket, which means that anything Joe Biden tries to do, you vote against perforce. That’s it. By that rationale, members’ votes belong to the GOP caucus, who will direct them what to do. The members are then puppets of the caucus, not free thinking legislators analyzing what is in the the best interests of their constituents and voting accordingly.
Totally nuts. But not the least bit unexpected.
That’s why they love calling Social Security and Medicare “entitlements” – it hides that they’re insurance programs that people pay for.
“any kind of a payback to tax payers for their hard earned dollars is a “handout.””
Unless they’re military, or big business or rich, and here’s the rub, not actual taxpayers, but tax evaders.
They think it’s a great idea that they should be suckling at the teat of government largess but no-one else should.
Pelosi needs to speak with (threaten?) McCarthy and tell him–in NO uncertain terms–that ANY current GOP member on ANY committee who is threatened with having their committee assignments revoked/stripped, then their “replacements” will NOT be seated on a single committee or sub-committee nor will they be acknowledged. ALL votes from any committee or sub-committee that has had a GOP member removed as the result of political retribution will only acknowledge the votes from members who were originally assigned to said committees.
Basically, Pelosi tells McCarthy, “You want to play political vendetta, well I will make sure there won’t be a GOP voice in a single committee and it will ALL be on YOUR head. Political ads will NOT blame the Democrats because we WILL remind everyone that YOU–and YOU ALONE–are the reason that the GOP has no voice.”