Tag: House of Representatives

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Congress GOP Viral Video

‘Bad Lip Reading’ Reveals Matt Gaetz’s Secret Code Name

If we’re honest, most of us would admit that we’d love to know what’s said between members of Congress when they’re speaking with each other on the floor of the House or Senate. Can you imagine how much more we’d dislike most of them if we could hear what they say when we’re not looking or listening?

For example, that face-to-face conversation between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy as the final vote was about to be taken that would elevate McCarthy to the Speaker’s chair.

Unfortunately, there’s no sound on the video that photo is taken from, but that doesn’t mean we have to remain in the dark when it comes to the words exchanged between the two.

According to Bad Lip Reading, we have new insight as to what was being said as the votes were being tallied in the House.

For those of you not familiar with their work, The Mary Sue explains the purpose of Bad Lip Reading:

 Bad Lip Reading is an anonymous YouTube channel that dubs over news footage and scenes from film and TV shows with nonsensical dialogue. The dialogue always more or less matches the movements of people’s mouths, and some surprising storylines end up emerging from the chaos.

The first video from Bad Lip Reading shows what was said between Gaetz and McCarthy. Take a look:

And now we have Gaetz’s other name, also courtesy of the folks at Bad Lip Reading.

Vain Guy is appropriate. Then again, so is Superperv.

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Congress GOP Taxation

WATCH Jake Tapper Humiliate A Republican For Lying About The IRS And Budget Deficit

CNN host Jake Tapper gave GOP Congressman Mike Johnson (LA) a lesson in basic economics and the need for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and wound up making the Republican look like a clueless dolt Tuesday on the network.

The bone of contention was legislation proposed by House Republicans that would not allow the IRS to fill 87,000 open jobs and would also increase the federal deficit.

Tapper began by noting:

“You supported the House bill we just discussed. It would rescind billions of dollars to the IRS. You tweeted, you will vote to ‘stop the 87,000 IRS agents from going after families’. That’s not true. It would be employees, not agents. The Congressional Budget Office says that your bill to get rid of those IRS employees is going to add to the deficit.”

Johnson replied:

“Only in the Bizarro World of Washington would you get an estimate that not spending the money is going to add to the deficit.”

Tapper pushed back:

“Because of enforcement more people who are avoiding paying their taxes. About ten years ago, if you made more than $10 million a year, one out of five people like that would be audited. Now it’s down to 3.6 percent. The wealthy people are getting away with not paying their taxes. Corporations too.”

Rather than admit Tapper was correct, Johnson decided to lie:

“The intent of hiring all of these new agents would have the effect of going after hard-working families and small businesses. That is not a Republican talking point. That comes from the Joint Committee on Taxation. When the Joint Committee on Taxation publishes something, it’s given a lot of weight. They’re nonpartisan.”

That’s when Tapper hit back by reminding the congressman:

“But I quoted the CBO, the CBO is nonpartisan too!”

Johnson:

“The CBO doesn’t have a lot of credibility right now. Their analysis is wildly inaccurate in a lot of ways and they don’t always do appropriate analysis.”

Tapper then asked the most important question:

“Do you think there’s a problem in this country of wealthy individuals and companies not paying their fair share in taxes?”

The congressman responded:

“That’s been a problem, of course, but it’s — we’re not preventing that. The IRS has an important job to go after tax cheats, absolutely, and we support that. We want these things to be done properly.”

But for it to be done properly requires IRS employees to do the work of tracking down tax cheats. Congressman Johnson and other Republicans say they want to stop tax fraud, but then they turn around the try to hamstring the IRS. As usual, they’re just grandstanding and using bullshit instead of facts.

Here’s the video:

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Congress GOP Social Safety Net

GOP Congressman Admits Republicans Plan To Slash Medicare And Social Security

A Republican congressman admitted Monday that since his party now has the majority in the House of Representatives, they plan to make massive cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and other entitlement programs.

Florida Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) was being asked about remarks made by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who said Sunday that he and members of his caucus would be looking at possibly cuts to defense spending, which led Fox Business host Stuart Varney to inquire, “Congressman, should military spending cuts be on the table and put on the table by a Republican?”

Waltz replied:

“Well, look, I agree with Jim Jordan that we are going to carve out work policies out of the military. We are going to look at the out of whack ratio of generals. I, I invited them to come on the Armed Services Committee and and work with us on that.”

Waltz then added:

“But Stu. And by the way, I’m all for a balanced budget. We’ve got to get spending under control, but we are not going to do it on the backs of our troops and our military when at the same time we’re talking about China is the greatest threat. We’re going to have a select committee on China. They’re tripling their nuclear arsenal. Iran is racing towards a new North Korea is about to launch an ICBM. Russia is on the on the march.

“And oh, by the way, we still have a global terrorist state now in Afghanistan. Thanks to Joe Biden. So this is I mean, we can work on prioritizing defense spending, but that’s really nibbling around the margins. If we really want to talk about the debt and spending, it’s the entitlements program that’s 70% of our entire budget, that 1.7 trillion. And defense within that is only 30%. So if we want to talk about big reforms, I look forward to hearing that from those folks who are pushing towards a balanced budget.”

Waltz’s comments drew an immediate response from White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

If you’re wondering how exactly the Republicans will try to cut Medicare and Social Security, consider what they’ve already said about not raising the debt ceiling unless President Biden agrees to massive cuts in social welfare programs. They want to hold the nation hostage so they can enact their radical agenda.

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Congress GOP

The Lincoln Project Dubs House GOP ‘America’s Taliban’ – Here’s The Receipts That Prove They’re Right

Now that the most extreme members of the House Republican caucus have gotten major concessions from Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, you can expect the far right of the right-wing (a.k.a. the MAGA wing) of the GOP to pursue an agenda that will hurt most Americans and weaken the country.

The Lincoln Project is fond of calling these MAGA Republicans (think Reps. Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Jim Jordan) the American Taliban, and released an ad in November giving them that title.

With McCarthy beholden to this American Taliban, the Lincoln Project has released their ad again, along with this updated message:

When we released this ad in November, we told you there would be no compromise with the Ultra-MAGA if they won. This week they showed a willingness to take the nation hostage to further their own corrupt ambitions. 

They aren’t interested in policy debates or real governance, only implementing their culture war to roll back individual rights, crush dissent, eliminate fair elections, and destroy our democratic institutions.

For those who need supporting evidence to bolster the ad’s message, we brought the receipts that prove what the House GOP majority has planned for the next two years.

  • Tackling inflation (Though they have no written plan)
  • Dealing with crime (Again, no plan)
  • Border security (They want President Biden to visit the border, but have no ideas beyond that)
  • Impeachment of Biden and Biden administration officials (Payback for Trump’s TWO impeachments)
  • Investigations of Hunter Biden (who holds no office or position of power), the FBI (for daring to serve a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago), the Justice Department (because they’re afraid of accountability for criminal behavior), and the origins of COVID-19 (because they hate Anthony Fauci and cannot admit Donald Trump screwed up the American response to the virus)

Can you say clusterfuck? That’s what we can look forward to for the next 22 months.

Oh, and there’s also hints that House Republicans will refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless President Biden agrees to massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid).

Buckle up, gang. It’s going to be one hell of ride, and the GOP is hoping to inflict as much pain as possible on anyone who didn’t vote for them.

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Congress GOP

Anti-McCarthy Republicans Are ‘In For A Rude Awakening’ Now That He’s Speaker: Report

Now that Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has finally been elected Speaker of the House, what will become of the breakaway faction of Republicans who refused to support him and made the entire GOP caucus look like a clown car for 96 hours?

According to a former Republican strategist, members of Congress such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (CO) and Matt Gaetz (FL) can expect to pay a heavy price that may contribute to them not getting reelected in 2024.

Conservative campaign consultant Alice Stewart said Saturday on CNN that the first punishment for renegade members who wouldn’t support McCarthy will be less prestigious committee assignments.

“I don’t think there’s going to be as much under the Christmas tree for them in that regard as they seem to think. Speaking with a lot of members of the rational Republican group throughout the weekend, specifically late into the night last night, they were frustrated. They were angry. They felt this was completely unnecessary given the fact that every concession they had requested had been met and this was not a matter of policy, this was just about personality conflicts with Kevin McCarthy.”

She added:

“Here these people have gone in day-in and day-out for all the right reasons for the party and for policies, and you have people like [Rep. Matt] Gaetz and [Rep. Lauren] Boebert who are in a vanity project to raise money for the future. They do have the opportunity to decide who gets on which committee and where and, I can guarantee you, Alex, that they’re going to be quite selective in who gets on which committee.

“Certainly Matt Gaetz has his eye on the prize for a key committee assignment, but they’re going to be in for a rude awakening because their colleagues are frustrated with the fact that they have a job to do.”

If indeed Boebert and Gaetz do lose in the next election, all of the chaos they’ve cause might just have been worthwhile. And the fewer Republicans there are in Congress, the better off the country will be.

Here’s the video from CNN:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rsZacN04no