Tag: gop senators
Top GOP Senator: Republican Threat To Impeach Judge Is 'Idiotic'

Top GOP Senator: Republican Threat To Impeach Judge Is 'Idiotic'

Egged on by wannabe dictator Donald Trump, House Republicans are pushing GOP leadership to let them embark on impeachment proceedings against federal judges who dare to rule against their Dear Leader—a time-consuming and destined-to-fail effort that harms the rule of law and could even wound the Republican Party in elections moving forward.

Multiple Republican lawmakers have filed articles of impeachment against four federal judges who recently ruled against the Trump administration.

“Congress has the constitutional power to impeach rogue activist judges—and we intend to use it,” Republican Rep. Brendan Gill of Texas, who filed articles of impeachment against a federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to turn around planes that were deporting alleged Venezuelan immigrants to a gulag in El Salvador, wrote in a post on X.

House Republicans are pushing for the impeachments to move forward even as Politico reported that some GOP lawmakers view the effort to be “idiotic.”

“You don’t impeach judges who make decisions you disagree with, because that happens all the time,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told Politico in early March. “What you do is you appeal, and if you’re right, then you’re going to win on appeal.”

Even Chief Justice John Roberts warned that impeachment is not the way to handle disagreements with judicial decisions.

“We are going to keep the impeachments coming,” Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee wrote in a post on X. Ogles himself filed articles of impeachment against a judge who ordered the Trump administration to restore websites it had taken down to comply with Trump's executive order targeting “gender ideology extremism.”

But complicating things for Republican leadership is that Trump blessed the impeachment efforts on Tuesday, saying that the judge who tried to block his effort to deport immigrants without due process is a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama."

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” Trump wrote in a deranged Truth Social post.

Co-president Elon Musk, who has threatened to fund primary challenges to Republicans who don’t do what Trump says, also wants judicial impeachments.

“This is a judicial coup. We need 60 senators to impeach the judges and restore rule of the people,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Tuesday after another federal judge ruled against the Trump administration, this time on its attempted ban of transgender troops.

Given that GOP leaders acquiesce to all of Trump's wants, no matter how immoral or unconstitutional, his demand puts them in a difficult place of having to choose what’s right or to make their Dear Leader happy.

“Everything is on the table,” Russell Dye, a spokesperson for House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, toldPolitico. An unnamed spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson also told Politico that judges “with political agendas pose a significant threat” and that Johnson "looks forward to working with the Judiciary Committee as they review all available options under the Constitution to address this urgent matter.”

But as aides for Johnson publicly said all options are on the table, top GOP aides privately admitted the impeachment route is stupid and will take up time the House needs to pass the rest of Trump’s destructive and unpopular agenda.

“It’s never going to happen,” an unnamed senior Republican aide told Politico. “There aren’t the votes.”

Plus, forcing Republicans to vote on impeachment could be politically damaging for the GOP.

Polling from February—when Republicans began crowing about impeaching judges who ruled against Trump—showed that voters want Trump to follow court orders.

"This court issue is a big loser for Trump," CNN's Harry Enten wrote in a post on X, referring to a Washington Post poll from February. "The belief that Trump must follow court orders is more popular than Mother Teresa: 84% of all adults, 92% of Dems, 82% of Indies & 79% of the GOP."

Other polls have similar findings, including an NBC News survey released Wednesday. It found that a 43 percent plurality of voters believe the president and executive branch have too much power, as opposed to 28 percent who believe the Supreme Court and judicial branch have too much.

The cherry on top of this for GOP leaders is that their members would be taking potentially damaging votes on impeachment for nothing. The charges would be disposed of in the Senate, where there is no way on earth that two-thirds of the chamber would vote to convict and remove judges. Republicans have just 53 votes there. To impeach a judge, they’d need 14 Democrats to also join in.

But never put it past Republicans to do stupid things in the name of subservience to Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson

Republican Party Warns Members And Senators: No More Town Halls!

Following a wave of humiliating viral videos capturing congressional Republicans being berated by their own outraged constituents at town halls nationwide, GOP lawmakers are now being told to stop holding such events altogether.

Last month, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) "tried asking for unity at his 'community coffee' event," but "his audience had screamed, cussed and called him a Nazi," The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. "The crowd was furious that Obernolte had defended the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers. They yelled when he said he was glad billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was 'looking at all of the waste' in the federal budget."

"And in reference to Trump, they shouted: 'No king! No king! No king!'"

This week, President Donald Trump, without providing any proof or evidence, claimed that voters caught on camera confronting their elected representatives at town halls—largely in outrage over the mass termination of tens of thousands of government employees and the cancellation of critical, life-saving programs, under the eye of Musk and his DOGE team—were actually "paid" operatives and suggested they were Democratic shills. His allegation has been swiftly echoed by numerous Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and their MAGA supporters.

On Tuesday, in a closed-door meeting among House Republicans, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), "very dramatically told members to put down their phones and listen," reportedThe Wall Street Journal's Olivia Beavers.

"He said no one should be doing town halls. Likened it to 2017, [he] said the protests at town halls and district offices are going to get even worse. Another congresswoman got up and complained that they’ve been picketing at her house and targeting her kid, this source says." Beavers noted that Hudson meant in-person town halls.

Democratic House Judiciary Committee chief counsel Joshua Breisblatt went even further: "this has hardcore 2010 vibes..." he remarked, appearing to refer to the Tea Party's anti-Obamacare town halls.

Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman added that Rep. Hudson "told Republicans they should be doing tele town halls instead of in person town halls. He said it is a more efficient way to reach constituents. And he said Dems will send someone to an in-person event to get a viral clip."

Hudson "said Democratic activists are hijacking town halls to organize, drowning out constituents with real issues. He said virtual events could reach thousands of constituents."

That claim targeting Democrats does not appear to align with numerous viral videos with millions of views on social media platforms, like this one, which has been viewed nearly 5 million times on just one social media platform in just three days:

Sherman also reported that it was Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-C) who "said that people are harassing her children at her house."

"Hudson said the paid resistance people are out there like in 2017,” The Daily Beast's Juliegrace Brufke added.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) responded to the 2017 comment: "Republicans think pissed off voters showing up at their town halls are 'paid resistance.' Did the 'paid resistance' cause them to lose 41 seats in the House the next year, too?"

The Bulwark's Sam Stein reported that some House Democrats said if Republicans won't do in-person town halls, they will hold them — in Republican districts.

Bipartisan criticism came swiftly.

"If you don't have the courage to face your constituents -- the majority of whom just voted for you -- you certainly don't have the courage to stand up for your country," charged Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL). "Cowardice is the opposite of leadership. And it's all the @GOP has."

Five-term Republican former Rep. Justin Amash blasted his former colleagues: "If you can’t handle contentious town hall meetings, then you shouldn’t be in Congress. Who cares if a questioner has an agenda? An honest legislator doesn’t fear these exchanges. They always represent an opportunity to persuade constituents, even if you can’t sway the questioner."

Although not a member of Congress, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, the former vice presidential nominee, offered to hold town halls himself.

"If your Republican representative won’t meet with you because their agenda is so unpopular, maybe a Democrat will. Hell, maybe I will. If your congressman refuses to meet, I’ll come host an event in their district to help local Democrats beat ‘em," he vowed.

Vox senior politics correspondent Andrew Prokop remarked, "House GOP advised to hide from their constituents rather than try to publicly defend the Trump/Musk agenda."

Democratic strategist Matt Corridoni added, “'Stop talking to your constituents' is one hell of a message."

Town halls are a rich tradition in America, as University of Texas political science professor Mark Hand wrote in 2023:

"The first town halls in America were mini governments, not Q&A sessions—and we don’t really know where they came from. Today, when a representative goes back to their district, it’s mostly listening and responding carefully to constituent concerns. But the first town hall meetings in Massachusetts in the 1630s were experiments in community-level direct democracy, a tradition that continues today in some Massachusetts towns," he wrote.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Ron Johnson

GOP Senator Rejects Trump Plan To End Debt Limit

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said he will vote against President-elect Donald Trump's plan to eliminate or raise the debt limit.

During a Sunday interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo noted that Trump planned to eliminate or raise the debt limit as part of a large bill that would include funding border security.

"President Trump wants eliminating or raising the debt ceiling in this first big package," Bartiromo told Johnson. "Will you vote for it?"

"No, we absolutely need a debt ceiling limit," Johnson insisted. "I'll negotiate in terms of how far we increase that. There are all kinds of things we could do, but it starts with, again, going back to a baseline spending this reasonable amount as part of the negotiation on increasing debt limit."

"But we absolutely need that debt limit, or there's no control over out-of-control government spending," he added.

"And therein lies the issue here," Bartiromo pointed out. "We are going to see battles ahead."

Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Tulsi Gabbard

GOP Senators Signal Trump To Drop Weakest Nominees Before 'It Gets Ugly'

According to Ryan Nobles of NBC News, Donald Trump is getting dire warnings from Republican lawmakers that some of his more problematic nominees for his Cabinet are in for rough sledding if they don't drop out before their nationally televised confirmation hearings.

Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe and speaking with host Willie Geist, Nobles explained that there are fears about what will come out if nominees like Fox News personality Pete Hegseth and ex-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard are forced to explain their views under hostile questioning.

"These Republicans want him to win and when they go through the advise and consent role here it's not because they want to trip him up, not because they want to make his life difficult," Nobles reported. "It's because they want him to have the best people around him in these Cabinet posts when he takes office on January 20th and beyond."

"So what they would like to see happen is, behind the scenes there is a conversation, they talk to the administration, they talk to these sherpas that are working with these candidates and they say, 'Do you know what? It's just not going to happen. If you go through this confirmation process it's going to be ugly, we're going to have a hearing where, remember, Democrats get to ask questions, they're going to expose a lot of these issues that have come up in media reports. Your nominees are going to have to deal with all of this and it's ultimately going to look bad for you, and then, at the end of all of it, after this brutal situation, we may have to vote against you and make it look like we are in opposition to you," he added.

"The other path is behind the scenes we quietly talk about how this isn't necessarily the right person for this job for a whole range of reasons, why don't you find someone else and let that person bow out on their own," he elaborated. "That's how it worked with [failed attorney general nominee] Matt Gaetz because it was clear that under any circumstance Matt Gaetz was not going to get the votes," he elaborated before remarking, "Trump got that message. '

Watch below

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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