Posted on 04/18/2024 9:28:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If the House GOP loses its majority next year, it might well be because Speaker Mike Johnson sold out Republican voters by failing to fund border security while working with Democrats to funnel billions more taxpayer dollars to Ukraine — after he repeatedly said he wouldn’t do precisely that.
Of course, it won’t take much to lose the Republican majority, which will narrow to 217-213 once Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., retires later this month. (Gallagher, whose last day was set for Friday, has said he’ll delay his retirement to help ensure Johnson’s Ukraine funding passes this weekend.)
November is not that far off, and between President Joe Biden’s fragile health and declining mental capacity, and Donald Trump’s legal (lawfare) troubles, the presidential election is very much up in the air. It won’t take much, in one direction or the other, to tip the balance of power in the House.
But the truth is, Johnson and Republican House leaders will deserve to lose their slim majority if they go through with their plan to enact the Biden administration’s agenda and send billions to Ukraine and Israel while refusing to do anything about the ongoing border crisis.
Whatever happens next, by any measure Johnson’s tenure as speaker has been an abject failure, a profile in spinelessness. Under his speakership, the Republican House majority has already dwindled by five (when Johnson was elected speaker, he had a 222-213 majority, nine seats) and will soon dwindle by one more. This shrinking majority is made worse by his and his lieutenants’ feckless leadership and unwillingness to play hardball with Democrats and establishment Republicans. After all, what good is even a slim Republican majority if you’re going to ignore what your voters want and work instead to pass Biden’s priorities?
And make no mistake, this is exactly what Johnson has done. Five months ago, he sent a sternly worded letter to the Biden White House explaining that “supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” and that before more tax dollars were thrown at the Ukraine conflict, the Biden administration needed to answer questions about our objectives, establish accountability for what we’ve already sent there, and define what a victory and “sustainable peace” will look like.
After that, Johnson more or less did nothing, and none of what he demanded came to pass. And yet Johnson is now working very hard to give Biden and the Democrats everything they wanted while getting zero in return — and still nothing has been done about the border. (Less than nothing, actually. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democrats this week disposed of impeachment articles without a trial for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom the House voted to impeach over the border fiasco. Senate Dems, who enjoy an even slimmer majority in their chamber, made it clear there will be no accountability for the Biden administration over the border.)
At one time, not long ago, Johnson talked a big game about the border. It seemed like he cared about it. As my colleague Jordan Boyd noted Wednesday, back in May 2023, before he was speaker, Johnson opposed sending more aid to Ukraine until Congress addressed mounting problems here at home. The U.S., he said, “should not be sending another $40 billion abroad when our own border is in chaos, American mothers are struggling to find baby formula, gas prices are at record highs, and American families are struggling to make ends meet, without sufficient oversight over where the money will go.”
Once he became speaker, Johnson softened his tone on funding foreign wars but still maintained that addressing America’s problems should come first. Even as recently as November, he said additional funding for Ukraine should coincide with “changing our own border policy.” In December he called the border crisis his “top priority,” and in January he actually went and visited the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, a hotspot for mass illegal crossings.
So much for all that. The border no longer appears to be his top priority or really much of a priority at all. It ranks below funding for Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific, which are all set to get funding in an aid package — along with billions for Gaza, which is to say Hamas — that Johnson and other GOP House leaders are working with Democrats to pass over the objections of much of the Republican conference and the vast majority of Republican voters.
And they’re not even trying to make cogent or compelling arguments for what they’re doing. Speaking on Wednesday to CNN’s Jake Tapper (whose viewers, it seems, are Johnson’s actual constituency), Johnson repeated the Democrat and neocon talking point that unless we keep shoveling money into a grinding war of attrition in Ukraine, Putin will march through Europe. I’m not kidding. He said: “We are going to stand for freedom and make sure that Vladimir Putin doesn’t march through Europe.”
The Putin-will-march-through-Europe line was preposterous when it was trotted out over two years ago; today it’s indefensible, a worn-out neocon talking point that no one, not even those robotically repeating it like Johnson is now, really believes. Moscow, which has yet to secure even the areas of eastern Ukraine it claims to have annexed, has no ability to threaten Europe militarily. And even if it did, Russia has a unique strategic interest in Ukraine it does not have in Poland or other NATO member countries, let alone the whole of Europe.
But Johnson isn’t going to let facts on the ground get in the way of his tired establishment narrative — or better yet, Democrat narrative. As Will Chamberlain put it Wednesday on X, “We effectively replaced Kevin McCarthy with Chuck Schumer as speaker of the house.”
The obvious reality is that Speaker Johnson is a pathetic tool of the Washington uniparty, and the sooner he loses his gavel, the better off the country will be — even if it means Democrats regain a House majority. I’d rather have a coherent and unified opposition party than a complicit, compliant, and totally compromised GOP majority under Johnson. Especially if impeaching Biden is off the table, as it clearly is, then what exactly is the point of continuing to do business this way?
So yes, if Republicans lose their House majority in November, it’s Johnson’s fault. And in the long run, he’ll be doing us all a favor.
I can’t think of a reason why I should vote down ballot.
Lazy
First, you admit there is a chance that I'm right, because your sentence could just as easily have said "That’s not necessarily untrue" and it would mean the exact same thing.
If all the Senate got was individual spending bills, as we were on track to do, they would have to fund the ones they wanted...
Now THAT is not necessarily true 😉.
If you recall, the ENTIRETY of ObamaCare was an amended innocuous House spending bill called "H.R. 3590--A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Ways and Means," submitted by Charlie Rangel (D-NY).
Once it got to the Senate, however, they amended it to completely gut the original contents, turning this "spending bill" into a container for whatever the Senate wanted to further amend it to become. This is how the Senate got around the origination clause of the Constitution to introduce Obamacare and still insist it was a House bill.
Since the Democrats in the Senate already have a history of doing this, it gives my point more credence than yours, which to me is wishful thinking on your part that the leopard has changed its spots. There is nothing that would have stopped the Senate Democrats from taking McCarthy's single spending bill and amending it to keep the spending but insert open borders, or amnesty for illegals, or anything else on the Democrat agenda and force McCarthy to eat it.
In fact, that's what they did to President Trump in 2018 with a "must have" military spending bill. They forced Trump to accept Democrat pork or risk shutting down the government and not paying our soldiers. That's when Trump declared "Never again," but the Democrats did it again the next year and today still point back to that as Trump budget-busting spending.
Keep in mind that the above spending was approved by a Republican-controlled Senate with Pelosi in charge of the House. So it doesn't matter which chamber the Republicans control, the Democrats still ALWAYS end up on top.
All that ended with Gaetz and Johnson.
Keep believing that, and you'll never see the sting coming.
-PJ
My point is simply thar McCarthy was at least trying to get rid of the Omnibus, and to cut spending, whereas Johnson hasn’t even tried. He’s just folded at every last opportunity.
So if you want to keep score, McCarthy far outscored Johnson, on effort and attempt alone. The fact we’re stuck with the guy who won’t even try is very suspicious.
We've debated this point before. I think Johnson tried from Day One, but was saddled with what McCarthy had left behind, with deadlines rapidly approaching.
People were mad at McCarthy for dallying and wasting an entire summer when he knew what the deadline was. He waited, and then forced his caucus to act with no time remaining. That's why he was ousted, because he violated the Hastert Rule and the 72-hour rule by handing his side a massive spending bill and giving them no time to study it when he had all the time in the world to get it done properly. Then, when he moved the bill to a vote without having "majority of the majority" support, Gaetz made the motion to vacate.
So what motivated McCarthy to delay, creating a brinksmanship scenario with Democrats? What motivated McCarthy to put the interests of Democrats over the interests of his own party?
And what's motivating Johnson now to fall into the same trap that McCarthy did? Massive illegal alien entry? The Hamas invasion of Israel? The anti-Israeli protests in the United States? LAAP-dog media outrage over President Trump?
-PJ
Show me one time where Johnson even voiced something like this:
McCarthy Says Biden Must Tighten Border to Avert US Government Shutdown
A tit-for-tat decomposition isn't useful. That's a micro view of a macro problem.
-PJ
It’s perfect proof that on the very issue of the day, McCarthy was threatening a government shutdown, which is where we should be on the issue, verses letting Johnson completely surrender all leverage of any kind.
Regarding shutdowns, you must remember several things:
Former President Trump laid into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday after Senate Democrats passed their long-awaited health care, tax and climate package.“Mitch McConnell got played like a fiddle with the vote today by the Senate Democrats,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“First he gave them the fake Infrastructure Bill, then Guns, never used the Debt Ceiling for negotiating purposes (gave it away for NOTHING!), and now this,” Trump said. “Mitch doesn’t have a clue – he is sooo bad for the Republican Party!”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said on Thursday that Senate Republicans got tricked into passing a semiconductor bill after believing that a Democrat reconciliation bill was dead.While Republicans were split on the merits of the legislation, most Republicans, including House Republican leadership, did not want to pass the CHIPS legislation if Democrats were to pursue a reconciliation bill to pass climate change, Obamacare, and other leftist priorities.
The same day that the Senate passed the CHIPS bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced a deal on the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that would aim to reduce the deficit, raise taxes, and boost climate change and Obamacare spending.
Announcing the deal immediately after Senate Republicans backed the CHIPS bill left many GOP lawmakers with egg on their faces.
"We got our ass kicked. It’s just that simple. Looks to me like we got rinky-doo’d. That’s a Louisiana word for 'screwed.' And we got our ass kicked. That’s the way my people back home see it," Kennedy said...
McConnell also lost to Schumer on a debt ceiling fight in 2021, which led to a deal to temporarily create a carveout for the legislative filibuster. One former senior GOP aide said the deal was to save McConnell’s "ego."
I don't know why McCarthy took so long in the House to get his spending bills worked out before slamming his side with it as the debt ceiling crisis loomed. Perhaps he was counting on Pelosi's promise to "always stand by him?" Perhaps he didn't see how he was being manipulated into wasting time over the summer in order to create the debt ceiling crisis that Democrats would then exploit in the Senate?
Because you know that's what Pelosi and Schumer are doing. It's why our side is always caught by surprise -- because our side in the Senate thinks the House is beneath them. That's why our side thinks it has to be the Senate bill that "fixes" what the peons in the House did.
-PJ
So what? The Senate only has that power AFTER the House first approves it. McCarthy said he was willing to shut it down in the House, which takes precedent.
I don't know why McCarthy took so long in the House to get his spending bills
Because it hadn’t been done since before Obama was in office. Even Trump with both Houses of Congress didn’t even try. McCarthy deserves huge credit for working those bills which Johnson immediately flushed down the toilet.
Can't you see how things might be different if our side coordinated between the two chambers
Once again that’s on McConnell, in the Senate. I’m no real fan of McCarthy, but he is better than McConnell. And even McConnell is better than Johnson, as McConnell at least occasionally delivered a win.
THAT's why Johnson is in the predicament that he's in right now.
No, Johnson is in the predicament he’s in, because he went back on his promises on things like FISA and tying any Ukraine funding to US border funding. He chose to surrender, and is rightfully paying the price for it.
Yea, well, we are screwed if we do something and screwed if we don’t do something.
“If the republicans lose majority in the house, the fault is totally the voters.”
Because Republicans are good and voters are bad?
Nay, you have it backwards as all partisans do: Republicans are bad and the voters will fire them.
Never mind.
You're too myopic to see what's really going on.
-PJ
Myopic? Is it not true the House actually controls the purse strings, and not the Senate?
I already explained to you how Schumer took a simple House bill to give a tax break to veterans who are first-time homebuyers and turned it into Obamacare.
Do you think they waited for the House to send them Obamacare? Did the House "control the purse strings" on Obamacare? Pelosi couldn't get Obamacare out of the House, so Schumer in the Senate had to take the initiative, and he did.
Just look at yesterday, when the Senate -- for the first time in 235 years -- dismissed an impeachment instead of holding a trial. Do you think someone who thinks like this is bothered by the "purse strings" in the House?
Go back and reread all my prior posts again (not just to you) and look at the bigger picture I'm painting.
McConnell has a "tell" and the Democrats know how to get him to go "all in" on a deal when they are holding a pair of twos (yes, I know I'm mixing my metaphors again, but I'm trying to get you to see any way I can). They know his fanatical devotion to the "traditions" and historicity of the Senate and his part in it, and they use that to manipulate his behavior. I already showed you several recent examples of McConnell getting played by Schumer.
For things that are truly originating in the House like you point out, Democrats know they have McConnell in the Senate to do what they need done because they know his "tell." For things that originate in the Senate (or are amended in the Senate), they know they have McConnell to pressure the House to go along.
For truly maverick things that come out of the House, Democrats know how to control the Overton Window. If you see Johnson making deals or decisions that go against his prior promises, it's probably because the Democrats use their minority powers in the House to change the set of available choices to Johnson, widening them or narrowing them, to limit the range of options he has to get things done. They can open up the window to see what course he's going to follow, and then narrow his options to trap him in a Box Canyon (yes, another metaphor) where he has only one or two ways out.
The reason they're so good at it is that Republicans don't coordinate between the House and the Senate the way that Democrats do, and that's also on McConnell. He's never been good at bringing in others who are outside of his personal network of sycophant devotees. I showed you an example of Democrats throwing a bone to McConnell to boost his ego after suffering a humiliating defeat. They want to keep him in place, because he's their ace up their sleeve (back to a prior metaphor).
So I'll tell you again...
It doesn't matter if it was Boehner, or Ryan, or McCarthy, or Johnson, or whoever follows. The Democrats control the rhythm of Congress because they control McConnell. Put any other Republican in the Speakership and the road still goes through McConnell. Until McConnell goes, nothing will change.
I don't blame Gaetz for trying to shake things up; he did have a personal vendetta against McCarthy, but McCarthy got too cozy with Pelosi and believed her promises just like Boehner and Ryan before him. I believe that any failures you perceive in Johnson are actually failures of the environment that Congressional Republicans find themselves in, built by Lott and Frist and McConnell, and it won't matter who Republicans replace Johnson with as long as McConnell remains in the Senate or his sycophants keep the "tradition" alive after he leaves.
We need a Summit meeting between the House and the Senate Republicans to come to a new, modern, 21st century understanding of their rules of engagement or we're going to be doomed to forever being stung by the Democrats on deal after deal after deal.
Getting stuck on a "my guy said this" or "did your guy ever say that" is missing the big picture completely.
-PJ
Republicans are bad and the voters will fire them.
And replace them with democrats. Great strategy you have there. No wonder we’re in the mess we are in.
“I’d rather have a coherent and unified opposition party than a complicit, compliant, and totally compromised GOP majority under Johnson.”
Unfortunately, it is not either/or.
We may end up with what we’ve had in the recent past: a complicit, compliant, and totally compromised GOP minority,
There is nothing Republicans could do to cause you to not vote for them.
No betrayal too great.
I appreciate the time you took to put that together, and certainly concede the Democrats are better tacticians in Congress, but appropriations (especially yearly spending bills) are per the Origination Clause of the Constitution originated in the House.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origination_Clause
The Senate can do something separate if it wants, but without the House, no spending will take place. McCarthy claimed he was ready to use this power, but was never given the chance.
Johnson is such an idiot he probably doesn’t even know he has the power, or if he does, has proven he’s too big a coward to use it.
We’re in this mess because people sit home when they don’t get what they want. Teenagers do this. Adults should be over that by now. It started in January 2017 when conservatives sat out the two special elections because the two candidates weren’t pure enough. It’s been that way for practically every election since. Midterms should have garnered us 30 seats, but clearly republicans weren’t interested. Republicans gave away a seat held by santos to the democrats. It’s a story repeated. And then you cry when Johnson has ONE vote majority after the mess you made the last four years losing elections. Even today, we have people saying they will sit out his election in November and these are FREEPERS. Absolutely ridiculous and immature.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.