Congress is god, not Donald Trump

 Homo proponit sed Deus disponit.

 

 

ICYMI: The House Republican spending bill with Trump's provision to stop non-citizen vote fraud was defeated on Sept.18 202-220 because of 14 Republican No votes, 5 Republican No shows, and 2 Republican fools voting present

 

House GOP torpedoes Speaker Johnson’s funding bill :

A diverse group of House Republicans torpedoed Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) proposal to fund the government on Wednesday, dealing an embarrassing blow to the GOP leader and derailing his strategy to avoid a shutdown at the end of the month.

Fourteen Republicans joined virtually every Democrat in voting against the spending plan — which paired a six-month stopgap bill with a measure that would require proof of citizenship to vote — bringing the final tally to 202-220, with two voting present. Three Democrats crossed the aisle to back the measure. [Davis of North Carolina, Golden of Maine, and Perez of Washington State]

The Speaker faced a troika of GOP opposition, with hard-line conservatives criticizing the use of a continuing resolution; defense hawks voicing concern about the impact the long-term funding bill would have at the Pentagon; and moderates expressing worries about having a shutdown threat so close to the election.

The roll call vote is here. 5 Republicans didn't bother to vote, mostly liberals from New York. Libertarian fool Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Gazpacho Greene voted present. The 14 Nay Republicans included cranks Biggs, Boebert, and Burchett, as well as grandstander Matt Gaetz and Nancy Look At My Big Tits Mace.

Don't blame Donald Trump or Speaker Johnson, or the 199 Republicans who supported them.

 

 

The $26.4 billion Israel/Gaza et alia Security Supplemental Appropriations Act passed yesterday 366-58-0-7, with Nay votes from 21 Republicans

 The roll call vote is here.

The 21 Republicans voting Nay:

The $60.8 billion Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act passed yesterday 311-112-1-7, all the Nay votes being Republicans

 The roll call vote is here.

Just a hypothetical here: $60.8 billion / $1.3 billion per night of Russian air assaults (compare Iran attack on Israel) = 46 nights.

The $8.1 billion Indo-Pacific Security Supplemental Appropriation for Taiwan et alia passed yesterday 385-34-1-11, all the Nays being Republicans

 The roll call vote is here.

I would have reported in real time but Blogger had a major outage yesterday afternoon lasting several hours.

24 Republicans voted for $280 billion fascist Chips and Science Act in July 2022 even though they didn't need to, latest award goes to Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co.

 The July 2022 roll call vote is here.

TSMC’s Arizona subsidiary is set to receive up to $6.6 billion in U.S. government funding under a preliminary agreement announced by the Biden administration on Monday. 

The funding, under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, will support Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s more than $65 billion investment in three cutting-edge fabrication plants in Phoenix, according to the nonbinding agreement.

More.

Dunderheads Peter Meijer and Fred Upton from Michigan voted for the bill, in addition to other has-beens like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

 

 

Compromise spending bill passes US House 286-134 bringing fiscal year 2024 federal discretionary spending to $1.659 trillion through September

 WASHINGTON — The House voted 286-134 on Friday to pass a sweeping $1.2 trillion government funding bill, sending it to the Senate just hours before the deadline to prevent a shutdown. ...

The bill, released early Thursday, funds the departments of Homeland Security, State, Labor, Defense, Health and Human Services and various other agencies. Together with the $459 billion bill passed earlier this month, it fully funds the federal government to the tune of $1.659 trillion through September, after months of stopgap bills and negotiations.

More here.

The Roll Call Vote is here, if you want to check how your representative voted. 

The argument is perennially NOT about deficit spending, but deficit spending on WHAT. 

The projected tax shortfall for all programs for fiscal 2024 is $1.582 trillion, more than half of which will be net interest expense of $0.870 trillion on the exploding national debt. Interest payments on what we have already borrowed now exceed defense outlays of $0.822 trillion.

CBO in early February estimated fiscal 2024 discretionary spending at $1.739 trillion, so today's bill "saves" a mere $80 billion off that.

Mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. is estimated at $3.908 trillion for fiscal 2024.

It's obvious that spending should be cut and taxes raised, but no one has the courage for either.

They should just agree to do both and let the chips fall where they may. Everyone out here will be pissed, vote accordingly, and it would be a wash politically.

Current national debt is $34.5612 trillion and rising.

Divided Democrats help more divided Republicans pass record high $886 billion NDAA which extends 5.2% pay raise to U.S. military, leaves woke policies intact, authorizes four more months of domestic spying authority

Congress passes $886 billion defense policy bill, Biden to sign into law :

 Congress has passed an NDAA for 63 straight years.

The roll call vote is here. 

 

US House votes against censure of leader of Hamas Wing, Democrat Rashida Tlaib, helped by 23 Republicans voting to table and 11 Republicans who didn't vote at all

 The measure to table the censure proposal won 222-186.

The roll call vote is here.

The protest organized by Tlaib stormed the Capitol and briefly occupied it on October 18th.

 

 

Republicans barely control one half of the legislative branch and eight of 'em decide to eat each other instead of to live to fight again in 45 days

 Brilliant, just brilliant.

McCarthy removed as speaker 216-210.

The roll call vote is here.

Eight Republicans joined 208 Democrats to depose McCarthy as Speaker.

the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy as Speaker included that slut Nancy Mace

not even that Scrooge Thomas Massie voted to depose McCarthy

Nancy Pelosi had just enough class not to vote at all

 

The 39 House Republicans Who Voted for the Same-Sex Marriage Bill, annotated

 The New York Times :

• Representative Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota

• Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska [re-elected 2022 with 51.3% of the vote]
  

• Representative Ken Calvert of California [re-elected 2022 with 52.3% of the vote]
  

• Representative Kat Cammack of Florida

• Representative Mike Carey of Ohio

• Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary]
  

• Representative John Curtis of Utah

• Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois [defeated in 2022 primary by fellow Republican in redistricting-forced battle]
  

• Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota [House GOP Majority Whip]
  

• Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania

• *Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin [flipped from Nay in summer to Yea now]
  

• Representative Andrew Garbarino of New York

• Representative Mike Garcia of California

• Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida

• Representative Tony Gonzalez of Texas

• Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio [voted to impeach Trump, retiring]
  

• *Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary, flipped from Nay in summer to Yea now]
  

• Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa

• Representative Darrell Issa of California

• Representative Ch[r]is Jacobs of New York [retiring after flipping position on guns after Buffalo mass shooting and angering supporters]
  

• Representative David Joyce of Ohio [leader of House Republican moderate caucus]
  

• Representative John Katko of New York [voted to impeach Trump, retiring]
  

• Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina

• Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York

• Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary]
  

• Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa

• Representative Blake Moore of Utah

• Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington [voted to impeach Trump]
  

• Representative Jay Obernolte of California

• Representative Tom Rice of South Carolina [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary]
  

• Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho

• Representative Elise Stefanik of New York

• Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin

• Representative Chris Stewart of Utah

• Representative Mike Turner of Ohio

• Representative Fred Upton of Michigan [voted to impeach Trump, retiring]
  

• Representative David Valadao of California [voted to impeach Trump, re-elected with 51.5% of the vote]
  

• Representative Ann Wagner of Missouri [Republican phony of the year LOL: “This district is home to me, and there is no better feeling than representing our conservative, Midwest values in Congress.”]

• Representative Tim Waltz of Florida [LOL: NYT has Democrat Tim Walz, Minnesota Governor, on the brain; the actual name is Republican US Rep. Michael Waltz, who ran unopposed in FL-6 and was re-elected in 2022; the newspaper of record smdh]
  

Michigan's Republican US House members Jack Bergman, Peter Meijer, and Fred Upton vote to turn on immigration magnet, give citizenship to the adult children of H-1B visa holders, the 1.5 million foreigners who already take jobs from Americans

The Roll Call vote is here.

The story is here.

AmodeiRepublicanNevadaYEA

BairdRepublicanIndianaYEA

BaldersonRepublicanOhioYEA

BarrRepublicanKentuckyYEA

BergmanRepublicanMichiganYEA

BradyRepublicanTexasYEA

BucshonRepublicanIndianaYEA

CammackRepublicanFloridaYEA

Carter (TX)RepublicanTexasYEA

CawthornRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

CheneyRepublicanWyomingYEA

ColeRepublicanOklahomaYEA

Davis, RodneyRepublicanIllinoisYEA

Diaz-BalartRepublicanFloridaYEA

DunnRepublicanFloridaYEA

EmmerRepublicanMinnesotaYEA

FallonRepublicanTexasYEA

FitzpatrickRepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

FloresRepublicanTexasYEA

FoxxRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

Garcia (CA)RepublicanCaliforniaYEA

GibbsRepublicanOhioYEA

GimenezRepublicanFloridaYEA

Gonzales, TonyRepublicanTexasYEA

Gonzalez (OH)RepublicanOhioYEA

Gooden (TX)RepublicanTexasYEA

GrangerRepublicanTexasYEA

Graves (LA)RepublicanLouisianaYEA

GuthrieRepublicanKentuckyYEA

Herrera BeutlerRepublicanWashingtonYEA

IssaRepublicanCaliforniaYEA

Jacobs (NY)RepublicanNew YorkYEA

Johnson (OH)RepublicanOhioYEA

Joyce (OH)RepublicanOhioYEA

KatkoRepublicanNew YorkYEA

KellerRepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

Kim (CA)RepublicanCaliforniaYEA

KinzingerRepublicanIllinoisYEA

LongRepublicanMissouriYEA

MaceRepublicanSouth CarolinaYEA

MalliotakisRepublicanNew YorkYEA

McCaulRepublicanTexasYEA

McHenryRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

MeijerRepublicanMichiganYEA

Miller-MeeksRepublicanIowaYEA

Moore (AL)RepublicanAlabamaYEA

NewhouseRepublicanWashingtonYEA

ReschenthalerRepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

Rice (SC)RepublicanSouth CarolinaYEA

Rogers (AL)RepublicanAlabamaYEA

RouzerRepublicanNorth CarolinaYEA

SalazarRepublicanFloridaYEA

SimpsonRepublicanIdahoYEA

SteelRepublicanCaliforniaYEA

TaylorRepublicanTexasYEA

TenneyRepublicanNew YorkYEA

Thompson (PA)RepublicanPennsylvaniaYEA

TurnerRepublicanOhioYEA

UptonRepublicanMichiganYEA

ValadaoRepublicanCaliforniaYEA

WagnerRepublicanMissouriYEA

Wilson (SC)RepublicanSouth CarolinaYEA

Fred Upton, Republican chucklehead, MI-6, waits until the very last hours of the Trump administration to declare: "But it is time to say: Enough is enough”

What courage! What principle! What restraint!

Upton joined nine other Republicans in the US House, including my own freshman congressman Peter Meijer, Republican chucklehead, MI-3, and all the Democrats, 222 of them, to impeach Trump a second time 232-197. Four Republicans did not vote.

The roll call is here. Upton is quoted here.

Upton, 67, has spent his life as a useless heir to a Whirlpool fortune estimated under $10 million. Once an aspiring journalist with a B.A. in journalism, instead he became a staffer to the libertarian Republican Representative David Stockman in the late 1970s and followed him to OMB under Reagan in the early 1980s. He first ran for Congress in 1986, eleven years after graduating from the U of M. He has been a congressional pest ever since, aren't they all?, who has inflicted on the American people such things as lightbulb bans, eventually styling himself as a moderate.

Meijer, now 33, is embarking on a similar trajectory, but with a gappy resume. Reportedly worth $50 million from the Meijer grocery store chain, Meijer has landed in Congress also after a decade of searching for himself.

Meijer got in to West Point but ignominiously dropped out after one year, became an Army Reservist, and went to Columbia in 2008 where he salvaged himself with a B.A. in anthropology by 2012. He interrupted this period at Columbia with service in Iraq in 2010-2011 as a sergeant. Post graduation in 2012 he served with an NGO 2013-2015. He took a wife in 2016, and an MBA from NYU, apparently 2016-2017. Then there was a brief stint in 2018 with Ilitch Holdings of billionaire family fame as an "analyst" which ended in January 2019. When Justin Amash left the Republican Party in July 2019, Meijer announced his candidacy.

Just as Upton took up the occasion of the Capitol attack as a moment of historic gravitas which inspired him to rise to impeach Trump, Meijer similarly has over-dramatized it by relating it to the drama of his "combat" experience as an intelligence advisor in Iraq (insert smirk here). He also laughably pondered out loud the danger those in the order of presidential succession were in from the trespassers on January 6. He reminds one of no one so much as the ex-bartender become US Representative, AOC, who has similarly made it a point to appear distraught and blow everything completely out of proportion to the reality in keeping with her modus operandi everywhere. Think of red-lipsticked Alexandria at the border fence a while ago, clad in white, head in her hands, weeping, sporting her $600 wristwatch.

The lefty Michael Tracey has framed such over-the-top demonstrativeness as "unhinged threat inflation" in recent days, which is exactly what we're being subjected to for demagogic purposes. The manipulation of the American people is nothing new, it's just that these young people are probably less aware of it as a technique than they are themselves victims and mimickers of the technique.

No so with Upton. He is the old hand who is too grown up and knowing for this, who knows just when to say just enough in order to receive huzzahs as a statesman instead of the harangues for the seat-warmer he is in reality. 

Somehow the American people are content to let such people put us $28 trillion in debt. We chuckleheads have the chuckleheads we deserve.

Stampede into Roth IRAs expected after passage of Secure Act in massive spending bill signed by Trump limits "stretch IRAs"

People who have saved $1 million or more in an IRA and plan to pass it on to someone other than their spouses should consider doing Roth conversions, said Ed Slott, president of Ed Slott & Co., which specializes in IRA education and training. For instance, if their children inherit the IRAs, they would likely receive them and face the tax consequences during their prime earning years. "It's a big tax hit," Mr. Slott said. "Beneficiaries can let the money accumulate tax-free in a Roth." Investment advisers are going to put a premium on Roth conversions. ... 

Roth conversions also would benefit the government, which would get tax revenue more quickly than it would under IRA distributions. But the change in stretch IRA policy under the SECURE Act will upset many estate plans that were written based on children being able to hold onto IRAs for their lifetimes. "I call this section of the SECURE Act the broken promise," Mr. Slott said. "It's like they changed the rules in the ninth inning."

More here.

79 Republicans in the US House voted for this POS hidden in the bill entitled "National Law Enforcement Museum Commemorative Coin Act".

How would you even know?

 

By forcing the hands of millions of older Americans with estate plans in place for their non-spouse beneficiaries, the government obviously hopes to reap a windfall of tax revenue generated by their conversion of tax-protected traditional IRAs and 401k plans into taxable Roths, knowing the temporary umbrella provided by the lower Trump tax rates expiring in ten years will be an added incentive.

These bastards are wily. 

Just six House Republicans voted against the NDAA with its provision of paid family leave to The Swamp

Buck

Gohmert

Griffith

Massie

McClintock

Rice (South Carolina)

The roll call vote is here. 

377 Yeas, 48 Nays, 5 Not Voting.

Profligacy and stupidity are bipartisan.

Elise Stefanik joins 33 other Republican traitors to help Democrats pass Farm Workforce Modernization Act

The roll call is here.

Among the others joining her in the infamy were Fred Upton and Devin Nunes.

The fact is no Republican had to vote for it for it to pass, so this is most definitely on them.

The bill would give green cards to undocumented farm workers, which is amnesty.

The House impeachment inquiry, which is already being conducted in secret and restricts Republican involvement, was finally authorized but on entirely partisan grounds, by Democrats

232 YEAS (all Democrats plus Justin Amash, the libertarian nutjob from my district in Michigan), 196 NAYS (194 Republicans plus 2 Democrats), and 4 NOT VOTING (3 Republicans plus 1 Democrat:  A personal family emergency, the death of a father, and the call of military duty kept the three Republicans away from the vote; the lone Democrat not voting is recovering from surgery).

YEAS included sexual predator Katie Hill of California, who formally resigns her seat in the US House as of today, and candidate for president Army Major Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

BILL TITLE: Directing certain committees to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America

US House advances Bipartisan Budget Act to the Senate 284-149, sets discretionary spending at about $1.37 trillion for both of the next two fiscal years and suspends debt ceiling

65 Republicans voted for the damn thing, not that it mattered substantively. The thing otherwise would have passed 219-214 even if the 16 Democrats who voted "nay" still had done so. It's a 235-197-1 Democrat-controlled US House.

Roll call vote 511 is here.

The real crime is a Republican president is going to sign it, not using his greatest weapon, the veto, to get any number of things he claims he wants.

Obviously he doesn't really want what he says he wants.

 

LOL: CNN calls US House vote supporting 2-state solution and opposing boycott, divestment, sanctions movement "divisive" when it passed 398-17

House approves resolution opposing Israel boycott movement in divisive vote

Roll call vote 497 is here.

The headline is correct in one sense, however: Both hard left and hard right are cracking up.

The former leader of the Rebel Alliance, Justin Amash, ignominiously abandoned the fight to vote "present" with four other courageous Democrats cowardly lions, leaving his wingman Thomas Massie of Kentucky to cast the lone Republican "nay" vote.

Massie strangely thought it a good idea to associate himself with the likes of Democrats AOC, Omar and Tlaib, apparently rushing to fill in for Squad member Ayanna Pressley, who inexplicably abandoned her compatriots and voted "yea", proving once again that the true meaning of libertarianism is the freedom to be anti-Semitic.

 

US House votes overwhelmingly to stop robocalls, except for Justin Amash and 2 others

The roll call vote is here.