The good news is that the phony Chip Roy lost, the bad news is that the crook Ken Paxton won

 But! it will not be without humor, and with any luck Cornyn will serve out his term impeding Trump's impulses.

Paxton: Talarico Is A Vegan Who Thinks God Is Non-Binary And There Are 6 Sexes

Talarico Denies He's Vegan: "I've Been Eating Barbecue Since Before Ken Paxton's First Indictment"

 

   

Trump cuts off his nose in the primaries to spite his face

  Trump’s primary push could leave him with short-term problem in Congress 

... the defeated or retiring incumbents he’s targeted remain in office until the end of their terms.  

Those lawmakers, who no longer face voters and have little political incentive to fall in line, could make things difficult for Trump and GOP leaders as they feel more emboldened to push back against key partisan legislation. In a narrowly divided Congress, even a handful of GOP defections can derail a party-line bill. ...

You betcha.

 

Bill Cassidy in the Senate is already a problem for Trump post-defeat.

So is defeated Thomas Massie in the House.

Still in the crosshairs:

Sen. John Cornyn, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.

Already alienated and retiring:

Sen. Thom Tillis, Rep. Don Bacon. 

Expect little to pass easily before November under these new intra-GOP adversarial circumstances, and even less after a Blue Wave.

 

 

It's amazing that the answer of Donald J. Trump and now J. D. Vance to Senator John Cornyn of Texas is a crook

 

 

... Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she couldn’t understand Trump’s thinking, given that Paxton was charged with felony securities fraud and faced a lengthy prison sentence that he managed to avoid by reaching a deal with prosecutors to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution and complete 100 hours of community service.

“I don’t understand. He is an ethically challenged individual,” Collins said of Trump’s support of Paxton, who was charged of defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup. The charges were later dropped after he agreed to a pretrial diversion program. ...

More. 

Elections have consequences as Mad King Ludwig eats his own narrow majority in the U.S. Senate and further alienates it

 

 Trump's self-destructive alcoholic personality will only make him more legislatively unsuccessful this year than he has been already.

 

 Cassidy becomes fourth GOP senator to back Iran war powers measure limiting Trump 

Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his bid for a third term in Saturday’s Louisiana Senate Republican primary, on Tuesday became the fourth Republican senator to vote to advance a war powers resolution directing President Trump to withdraw U.S. armed forces deployed against Iran.

Cassidy joined Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) in voting Tuesday for a motion to discharge the war powers resolution sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The motion passed by a vote of 50 to 47, setting up a future vote to proceed to the motion on the Senate floor.

The resolution is privileged under the 1973 War Powers Act, allowing it to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote instead of having to clear the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation.

Cassidy kept his plan to vote to advance the resolution secret until the last moment. He declined to reveal how he would vote on the measure when asked about it Monday.

Murkowski broke ranks with Senate Republican leaders last week to vote to advance the war powers resolution. ...

 Trump’s ouster of Republican senator sends shock waves through Senate GOP 

The resounding defeat of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) in Saturday’s Louisiana primary has sent shock waves through the Senate Republican Conference, underscoring how Republicans who look to distance themselves from President Trump and his low approval ratings will have to think twice about paying a political price for perceived disloyalty.

Cassidy’s ouster came a few weeks after Trump and his allies helped defeat five state senators in Indiana who defied Trump’s desire to redraw the state’s congressional map, sending a loud message to any Republican on Capitol Hill thinking about clashing with the president. ...

[Republican Senator Thom] Tillis, an outspoken critic of some of the Trump administration’s actions this year, reacted angrily to Cassidy’s loss, sending an email to Republican colleagues on Monday threatening to block a budget reconciliation package from moving on the Senate floor later this week — even though it’s a top Trump priority.

Tillis expressed his disappointment over Cassidy’s loss on Saturday and urged Republican colleagues to delay action on the reconciliation bill so as not to force Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), another Republican colleague facing a tough primary on May 26, to stay in Washington until late this week to vote on the budget bill, according to a source familiar with the email’s details. ...

Senate GOP expresses frustration, anger, sadness as Trump snubs Cornyn in Texas 

President Trump’s decision Tuesday to snub Sen. John Cornyn and endorse state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate Republican primary was met with frustration, anger and even sadness by Senate Republicans.

The move likely sinks Cornyn’s hopes of winning another Senate term, and Republicans warned it could make it tougher to defeat Democratic candidate James Talarico in November.

Republican senators exuded pain for Cornyn, who served as Senate Republican whip during Trump’s first term and is deeply respected by his Senate GOP colleagues. ...

Some Republican senators saw Trump’s treatment of Cornyn as a snub of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who had worked behind the scenes for months to persuade the president to back him.

The NRSC invested in Cornyn through a joint fundraising committee, and One Nation, a fundraising group affiliated with Thune’s political operation, has spent more than $10 million helping Cornyn. ...

Trump’s endorsement of Paxton and his attacks against Cassidy won’t make it any easier for him to muster GOP votes for his ballroom funding or for the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate MAGA allies who believe they were targeted by the government. ...

Cornyn is the scoundrel Texas deserves

 Sen. John Cornyn flips on the filibuster to pass SAVE America Act as Trump weighs endorsement

Cornyn, who spent years defending the filibuster, is locked in a competitive GOP runoff in Texas against Ken Paxton, who has aligned with Trump on the issue. ...

Twilight Zone: Republican Senate fascists tell dictator Trump to drop dead, CHIPS Act won't be repealed

 

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday said President Trump’s call for Congress to “get rid of” the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided $52 billion for the domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry, is dead on arrival on Capitol Hill. ...

“I think reconstituting domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors is a national security and economic imperative,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who was one of 17 Senate Republicans who voted for the law.

Cornyn noted that “the whole purpose of this was national security.”

“Because if there’s a disruption between Asia or Taiwan, to be more specific, and the United States, we would plunge into a depression and we wouldn’t be able to build advanced weapons or aircraft like the F-35,” he said.

The Texas senator said “the idea” for the law came from the first Trump administration, particularly then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“I understand the president suggesting maybe there’s a better way to do this than use tax dollars as incentives … but I think the original bill was responsible [for] this trend [to bring] much greater investment here in the United States,” he added.

He said he’s open to “tweaks around the edges” but explained “the program that Congress passed — that money is essentially spent.”

More.

 

The US Senate Republican election of John Thune over John Cornyn and Rick Scott to Majority Leader isn't surprising except to MAGAs who can't imagine that Thune beat Trump in South Dakota by 37,785 votes in 2016

 Thune has been dutifully serving Mitch McConnell for years and has the seniority and credibility demanded by his colleagues.

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

 

 

Trump was less popular in his own races than Republicans running for US Senate in theirs in 12 states in 2020

 Trump underperformed:

Ronchetti in New Mexico (loser)

Lummis in Wyoming

Capito in West Virginia

Cornyn in Texas

Rounds in South Dakota

Somebody you never heard of in Massachusetts (loser)

Sasse in Nebraska

Gardner in Colorado (loser)

Cotton in Arkansas

Collins in Maine

Sullivan in Alaska

Perdue in Georgia.

Imagine doing worse than three losers.

The Republican Party is infested with 123 members of the House and Senate who want tens of thousands more foreign workers let in to take US jobs

Story.

• Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD)
• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
• Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)
• Sen. James Risch (R-ID)
• Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
• Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)
• Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY)
• Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO)
• Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
• Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
• Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID)
• Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY)
• Sen. John Thune (R-SD)
• Sen. James Lankford (R-OK)
• Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
• Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS)
• Sen. Todd Young (R-IN)
• Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS)
• Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
• Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)
• Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)
• Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC)
• Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS)
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
• Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD)
• Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI)
• Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH)
• Rep. John Curtis (R-UT)
• Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN)
• Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA)
• Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC)
• Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AZ)
• Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-MI)
• Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI)
• Rep. Van Taylor (R-TX)
• Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)
• Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI)
• Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC)
• Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL)
• Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA)
• Rep. Darren Soto (R-FL)
• Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD)
• Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO)
• Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS)
• Rep. Peter King (R-NY)
• Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS)
• Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN)
• Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL)
• Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY)
• Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ)
• Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
• Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA)
• Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-LA)
• Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA)
• Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA)
• Rep. David Rouzer (R-NC)
• Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA)
• Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC)
• Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL)
• Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA)
• Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI)
• Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND)
• Rep. Trent Kelly (R-MS)
• Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH)
• Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH)
• Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX)
• Rep. David Joyce (R-OH)
• Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH)
• Rep. Ron Estes (R-KS)
• Rep. French Hill (R-AR)
• Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV)
• Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH)
• Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)
• Rep. Billy Long (R-MO)
• Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH)
• Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)
• Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
• Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY)
• Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY)
• Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)
• Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH)
• Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR)
• Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY)
• Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK)
• Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA)
• Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
• Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA)
• Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO)
• Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS)
• Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC)
• Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH)
• Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
• Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN)
• Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI)
• Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
• Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT)
• Rep. David McKinley (R-WV)
• Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)
• Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH)
• Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI)
• Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
• Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX)
• Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL)
• Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN)
• Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK)
• Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX)
• Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL)
• Rep. Fred Keller (R-PA)
• Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA)
• Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL)
• Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL)
• Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX)
• Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
• Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA)
• Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL)
• Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX)
• Rep. John Carter (R-TX)
• Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)
• Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH)
• Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA)

More of this please: Senator Cornyn mocks Senator Feinstein for withholding "facts"

Senator Cornyn reminds everyone that Jennifer Rubin is a fake conservative

John Cornyn ain't buyin' it

Senator John Cornyn is right: We've already had a hearing, and Ford & Democrats are hijacking the process

WaPo reports here:

Earlier Thursday, Senate Republicans had reiterated their resolve to press forward with a vote on Kavanaugh in the coming days if Ford chose not to testify before the 21-member Judiciary Committee.

“If she doesn’t want to participate and tell her story, there’s no reason for us to delay,” Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, told CNN. “I think it all depends on what she decides to do. We’ve all made clear this is her chance.” ...

Cornyn said Thursday that he sees no reason to call additional witnesses since the committee had already held a full hearing on Trump’s nominee.

“We already had a hearing,” Cornyn said. “That’s what I call hijacking the regular committee process to accommodate political interests.”

Once again Republicans refuse to even THINK of cutting spending in order to cut taxes

Reported here:

The Senate parliamentarian ruled Thursday that a fiscal "trigger," important to winning deficit-wary Sen. Bob Corker's support for the GOP plan, will not work under Senate rules. Republican senators are now looking to find new ways to address the concerns of Corker, a so-called deficit hawk Republican from Tennessee.

"It doesn't look like the trigger is going to work, according to the parliamentarian," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters, according to Politico. "So we have an alternative, frankly: a tax increase we don't want to do to try to address Sen. Corker's concerns."

Grassley wants to end the EB-5 visa program altogether, but Cornyn wants to end the EB-5 cap

Grassley would end the issuance of these "buy-your-way-in" visas, but the Texas Senator would open up the program to thousands more.

Story here.

Good idea: John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell call for transcript of FBI interview with Hillary Clinton

That's good. If there's nothing to see here, the FBI won't mind us having a look.

Story here.

Kimberley Strassel detects a sign of a spine in Mitch McConnell on the Lynch AG appointment

Kim is smart as ever and looking good

From her Wall Street Journal column here:

Mr. McConnell made clear that so long as he didn’t get his trafficking bill, Democrats didn’t get Ms. Lynch. He would devote the rest of this week to the Cornyn-Klobuchar legislation, next week would be about the budget, the week after that would be Easter recess, and so on. Let’s hope Ms. Lynch enjoys Sudoku. No give, no get.

The Republicans' biggest traitors on immigration amnesty: Mike Enzi, Mitch McConnell, Thad Cochran, Shelley Capito

The biggest traitors on immigration are Republicans Mike Enzi of Wyoming, who got an "A" grade from NumbersUSA for his anti-amnesty views, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thad (tell-me-what-to-do) Cochran of Mississippi who received "B" grades. Capito, who got a "C", was a crapshoot, as was Daines. Daines came through for us, Capito did not.

Based on such grades it looked last November like we had 14 newly elected/re-elected anti-amnesty Republicans in the Senate and 9 pro-amnesty (Louisiana had yet to be decided). Based on last Friday's vote in the Senate, however, we have 14 anti-amnesty, just not the same 14, and 10 pro-amnesty Republicans beginning new Senate terms as a result of the November 2014 election (individuals in red more or less surprised with their votes based on pre-election evaluations; expect them to surprise in the future, too).

Anti-amnesty:

Sessions of Alabama
Sullivan of Alaska
Cotton of Arkansas
Perdue of Georgia
Risch of Idaho
Ernst of Iowa
Roberts of Kansas
Cassidy of Louisiana
Daines of Montana
Sasse of Nebraska
Tillis of North Carolina
Inhofe of Oklahoma
Lankford of Oklahoma
Scott of South Carolina.

Pro-amnesty:

Gardner of Colorado
McConnell of Kentucky
Collins of Maine
Cochran of Mississippi
Graham of South Carolina
Rounds of South Dakota
Alexander of Tennessee
Cornyn of Texas
Capito of West Virginia
Enzi of Wyoming.

23 Republican traitors in the US Senate vote to fund Obama's illegal immigration amnesty

From the Roll Call Vote in the Senate, Vote Number 62, Friday, February 27, 2015, here [the bill passed 68-31, requiring a simple majority, meaning the Republicans, who control the Senate, could have stopped this by not authoring it or voting for it; not a single Democrat voted against the bill]:

Alexander (R-TN)

Ayotte (R-NH)

Barrasso (R-WY)

Capito (R-WV)

Coats (R-IN)

Cochran (R-MS)

Collins (R-ME)

Corker (R-TN)

Cornyn (R-TX)

Enzi (R-WY)

Flake (R-AZ)

Gardner (R-CO)

Graham (R-SC)

Hatch (R-UT)

Heller (R-NV)

Johnson (R-WI)

Kirk (R-IL)

McCain (R-AZ)

McConnell (R-KY)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Rounds (R-SD)

Thune (R-SD)

Toomey (R-PA)

Republican Senator-elect John Cornyn of Texas also has a divided mind on illegal immigration

According to NumbersUSA.com.