J. D. Vance gets his sorry ass back in the US Senate after missing critical confirmation votes on Monday and Tuesday which confirmed at least one horrible Biden nomination to a lifetime judicial position

 

 If all Republicans had shown up and Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) absence held, the GOP would have defeated the nomination [of Embry Kidd] temporarily.

If all senators had shown up, including Fetterman, it would likely have forced a tiebreaking vote by Vice President Harris.

Adding to the drama, Harris left Washington for Hawaii on Tuesday, depriving Democrats of a potential ability to break a 50-50 tie.

Despite the math, GOP members were incensed at the no-shows, which stretched into Tuesday as Vance did not show up for the morning vote.

Other senators, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), tagged along with Trump to the SpaceX Starship launch in Brownsville, Texas, further exacerbating the situation as Schumer prepared to hold another long night of nomination votes on Tuesday. ...

Vance, who missed all of Monday night’s votes in addition to the first one on Tuesday, received the lion’s share of criticism.

The outgoing Ohio senator initially defended his decision, saying that he was meeting with Trump as part of interviews for potential candidates to become FBI director and for other slots.

“I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” he added.

However, he backtracked and deleted his post on X. He also showed up for the pair of Senate votes during Tuesday’s afternoon session.

Full story here. 

Showing up is the easiest, most important thing senators can do, and they were too busy.

It's unforgivable.

 

Ted Cruz predicted it would happen in August

 

Republicans float a quiet conspiracy theory that Biden won't be on the ballot

“So here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on his podcast last month. “In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.”

“I view this as a very serious danger,” he said.

 

 

 

So Republican Senators J. D. Vance and Marco Rubio were too busy yesterday to show up and vote against a soft-on-sex-crime Biden nominee to the 11th Circuit

 Roll call vote here.

Anti-semitism runs wild on the nation's college campi and Joe Charlottesville Biden and his administration is silent

 

 Cruz on Anti-Israel Protests: "This Is America In 2024"; Where Is Biden? The Attorney General? FBI? Schumer? Jeffries?

In Iowa 57% of Republicans want someone other than Trump in 2023, down from almost 76% of Iowans in 2016 who wanted someone else heh heh

  So much winning!

Iowa (DMR/NBC): Trump 43, DeSantis 16, Haley 16, Scott 7

 

Trump came in second behind Ted Cruz in the Feb 1, 2016 Iowa Republican Caucus:

Ted Cruz 27.64%

Donald Trump 24.3%

Marco Rubio 23.12%.

Ted Cruz adopting the Jan 6th = terrorism take a year ago means Ted Cruz is just fine with using the Patriot Act to deny civil liberties to anyone accused of terrorism

 

Rush Limbaugh reverts to the status quo ante Trump, reads Ben Domenech article on the air caricaturing Capitol MAGA

Here's Domenech, the husband of Megan McCain, daughter of John:

An apolitical viewer of the summer of 2020 would learn one distinct lesson: If you want to be heard, if you want to be listened to, you need to go into the streets, make a ruckus, set things on fire, and tear down icons of America. This disrespect will be welcomed, hailed, and supported if your cause is just and your motives are righteous.

Just about everyone who showed up on Capitol Hill yesterday believed that about why they were there . . ..

Anyone remotely familiar with the sequence of events on Wednesday January 6 recognizes that while Trump was still speaking at 1:07pm, and boring the huge crowd to death far away on the Ellipse, a smaller faction was already over at the Capitol breaking in at 1:03pm. The Blaze's Elijah Schaffer was there documenting the whole thing, and frankly, inflaming the situation as "revolution" when what it was was a juvenile stunt. Just look at the left's similar reaction to the event. This is an elementary playground squabble by grown-ups who never grew up, elevated to national importance by the children running the media and the Democrat Party.

We are not a serious country. But I repeat myself.

The bios of some of these flamboyant mental cases whose pictures you have probably seen after they broke into the Capitol reveal them to be anything but Trumpists, yet Domenech, and Limbaugh, are as content to lump them all together as the GOP House and Senate is to ignore the efforts of Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz to investigate Election 2020 improprieties.

Business as usual. The left and the media caricature the right, and Con Inc. joins right in.

The left wins because the right eats it own. Every. Damn. Time.

Rush Limbaugh's biggest lie yet: When Trump came down the elevator and gave that speech, I was all in

Just now.

Rush Limbaugh was Ted Cruz' best friend on radio in 2015 and 2016, just like Levin and Hannity.

These shape-shifting grifters flipped on the dime. They know a cash cow when they see it.

Rush Limbaugh, June 16, 2015:

And the Drive-By Media, by the way, they’re already scoffing, they’re already discounting it, already calling it a circus act and this kind of thing. And it was.... You know me, I’m not endorsing, haven’t endorsed. I’m nowhere near any of that. I’m not even jazzed yet, folks. I have to tell you that this is all so premature, and it’s all so early, that whatever polling numbers there are just do not interest me because where we are right now is nowhere near where we’re gonna end up. ... I just ask people to remember that when Trump gets going here today, because what if Trump goes third-party?

Spare us Mark Levin your comments on Ann Coulter, you were Never Trump for 7 months in 2016

Mark Levin endorsed Canadian citizen Ted Cruz in March 2016 as Trump was clinching the nomination, and openly sided with Never Trump in April out of spite.

Then Levin flipped again just before the election and became Trump's BFF.

Levin's a con-man just like Trump, just not as accomplished.

Scott Greer is correct: Sessions endorsed Trump in February 2016 while the pack of weasels led by Rush Limbaugh was still all-in for Ted Cruz in March

Sessions' endorsement in February meant Trump had more Senate support than either Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders at the time. With Jeb Bush throwing in the towel also in February, the entire establishment GOP was melting down so bad over Trump that many establishment Republicans saw Cruz as the only way to stop Trump and possibly throw the nomination into a brokered convention.

No one, by the way, gaslights better than they do.  It's the secret of their success.

American history is complicated, especially for a Canadian

Even when correcting himself Rush is wrong: Beto won election to the Texas House and quit after a year

Democrats Are Ignoring Their Frontrunner [Bernie]:

Oh. I erred, folks. I said Beto O’Rourke had never won an election. He did. He won an election to the Texas House and then quit after a year to run against Cruz in the Senate. What I meant to say was that Beto O’Rourke’s biggest life achievement is losing to Ted Cruz in the Senate race, not that he’s never won an election. Because he has.

Beto was elected to the US House three times, in 2012, 2014 and 2016, representing TX-16.

Trump has learned nothing about politics

Going to the border he is. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Take Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck with ya and hand out some soccer balls why dontcha.

That will accomplish about as much as shutting down the government AFTER all your leverage is gone.

Sad!

Trump already compromised on The Wall, and that's the problem

Trump gave away 80% of what he wanted without getting anything in return.

It's political malpractice. 

Even worse, he's shut down the government now over the remaining 20% at the most politically inopportune time, having nothing left to bargain with.

The time to have done this was when Republicans were in control of Congress, in January 2017, or February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January 2018, February . . ..

Forgive us for thinking he was never serious about The Wall, at all.

The Wall is now and may always have been simply a political tool, like opposition to abortion. He stopped being serious about it in August 2016 after the immigration issue secured him the nomination, when this "advisor", Kellyanne Conway, came on board from the Ted Cruz campaign, which likewise was never serious about The Wall. Ted had one throwaway line about immigration in his entire speech announcing his candidacy, that's it. It was Trump who completely blindsided him and the rest of the Republican field with the issue. But ever since it's only red meat for the base. He never made it a priority, and fired the only person actively pursuing immigration reform in his administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. That's how unimportant The Wall has been to the president. 

The Wall riles up the news, keeping Trump in it, that's all.

Kellyanne Conway: Trump "Already Compromised" On Border Wall Funding, Originally Asked for $25 Billion:

I believe the president has already compromised. He originally asked for $25 billion. The House is at $5.6 billion. They did their job. The Senate has to come back. It is a modest investment.

Trump's $5 billion request would build just 100 miles of new wall, 115 miles of replacement barrier

Ted Cruz says Trump 'won't capitulate' over $5B demand, enough for 215 miles of border wall — half of it replacement:

[T]he $5 billion the House has approved for a border wall would be enough for about 215 miles of barrier. Less than half of that — about 100 miles, mostly in South Texas — would be frontier that doesn't already have a fence. The rest would go to replace older, less-effective fencing or to build secondary fencing. ...

Senior officials from the Homeland Security Department briefed journalists Friday afternoon on what the proposed $5 billion could accomplish. Their estimate of 215 miles' worth of new and replacement fencing works out to more than $23 million a mile, on average. That's far higher than the nearly 700 miles of barrier already in place along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Most of that was authorized under President George W. Bush, in the Secure Fences Act of 2006. The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2009 that put the initial cost per mile at $2.8 to $3.9 million. But that was in urban areas, where roads were already in place. Some of the replacement fencing installed during the Trump administration has cost about $8 million a mile. The more remote the area, the higher the cost. Homeland Security officials insisted that comparisons are inappropriate. "Every mile of border is different," said one official. "It depends on the terrain" and other factors.

Since Trump took office, Congress has approved $341 million for 40 miles of replacement fencing and new gates in San Diego, New Mexico and West Texas, plus gates in the Rio Grande Valley to close gaps between existing fence. Of that, 34 miles is complete.

Earlier this year, Congress provided an additional $1.375 billion for about 84 miles of new and replacement border barrier. That includes levee wall in the Rio Grande Valley, with construction expected to start in February, plus some new wall construction in that area of South Texas, along with replacement barrier in Arizona and California. ...

When Congress authorized wall funding earlier this year, it restricted construction to designs already in use.

Rush Limbaugh thanks Mark Meadows today when it was Meadows who helped stop the immigration showdown in October

Neither Meadows nor Limbaugh (Ted Cruz supporter) really want the wall.

And Trump obviously doesn't either, otherwise he wouldn't have treated the issue like he has, in sharp contrast to his campaign for president.

Here's the grifter today taking money from you suckers:

Nancy doesn’t even run the House yet, and she’s out there saying Trump couldn’t get the votes — and he did, and it was because of Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan and the Freedom Caucus. They did their special order earlier this week and they let the president that know they would have his back. It’d be easy for the president to think that he’s isolated, but it was I think a very important thing that they did to make it a point to go to the floor of the House and special orders to make sure that everybody knew — not just the president — that they, significant number of Republicans in the House, would have his back.

Like Hillary vs. Trump, Beto O'Rourke outspent Ted Cruz and lost, but some Democrats think he's their guy in 2020

But not Rahm Emanuel.

Rahm Emanuel rejects Beto O'Rourke 2020 buzz: 'You don't usually promote a loser':

"If Beto O'Rourke wants to go and run for president, God bless him, he should put his hat in and make his case. But, he lost. You don't usually promote a loser to the top of party," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday on MSNBC, becoming the highest-profile Democrat yet to air doubts about the excitement swirling around El Paso congressman. ...

One reason Democrats see potential for O'Rourke in a crowded presidential field is that he displayed a rare gift for inspiring donors nationwide.

He smashed through all fundraising records for any Senate candidate anywhere ever. He had a $38 million haul in one three-month period alone on his way past the $70 million mark. A final post-election disclosure due next week will push the total even higher. He outspent Cruz roughly 3-1. 

In Democrats' current short list for 2020 Beto runs third behind Lunchbox Joe and Bernie Sanders. Hillary's not on the list. Methinks Rahm would like to be.

Buh-Bye Beto, buh-bye $70 million

Ted Cruz: 4,228,832
Beto O'Rourke: 4,015,082

Beto O'Rourke is also pre-qualified for opprobrium from the #MeToo movement

Politico quotes him from 1991, here:

“Basically, the show documents the life of Will Rogers, the ‘lassoing fool,’ who rose from being an insignificant side show attraction to one of the more prominent political pundits and cultural statesmen in our history. Yet it is produced and directed in such a showy, glitzy, and ultimately, tacky manner, that one cannot help feeling disgusted throughout the show. Keith Carradine in the lead role is surrounded by perma-smile actresses whose only qualifications seem to be their phenomenally large breasts and tight buttocks.”

The Democrat answer to Ted Cruz is having a tough week.

Beto O'Rourke detonates suicide vest in race against Ted Cruz, claims he didn't leave scene of accident while drunk