Tag: gop senators
Bill Cassidy

'You Own This': Top GOP Senator Burned As Kennedy Wrecks Health Services

As the Trump administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., presses forward with a mass firing in a sweeping effort to downsize the agency tasked with safeguarding the nation’s well-being—including removing top leaders from key programs, including from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—a Republican Senator who cast the pivotal vote that enabled the controversial anti-vaccine activist to take the helm of the massive public health agency is facing scrutiny and backlash.

During Kennedy’s confirmation process U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana became an important voice and crucial vote in persuading his fellow Republicans to support what many saw as an extreme candidate. Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, is a medical doctor who worked for decades in public hospitals, and is an active vaccine advocate.

Senator Cassidy “ultimately provided the one-vote margin needed to advance Kennedy’s nomination to the full Senate,” as the Los Angeles Times had reported.

Defending his vote to confirm Kennedy, Senator Cassidy said the scion of the American political family had made assurances to him that convinced him to support his nomination.

Cassidy “said he was swayed by Kennedy’s commitments to support the immunization schedules recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, maintain systems used to vet new vaccines and monitor their safety, preserve statements on the CDC website assuring the public that vaccines don’t cause autism, and meet with Cassidy ‘multiple times a month,’ among other things.”

“I will watch carefully for any effort to wrongfully sow public fear about vaccines,” Cassidy said.

STAT News reported that Senator Cassidy “said he would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s keeper.”

Over the weekend, Cassidy was sharply criticized—and blamed—when HHS forced out Dr. Peter Marks, the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration division responsible for assuring the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, as CNN reported. Dr. Marks resigned but was “given the choice to resign or be fired.”

On Tuesday, The Hill reported that Kennedy “won’t acknowledge the scientific consensus that childhood vaccines do not cause autism.”

“That skepticism over seemingly settled science appeared to come to a head over the weekend when the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) top vaccine official was forced out and issued a fiery public letter blasting Kennedy.”

That official was Dr. Marks.

Cassidy appeared to express concern, but nothing more.

“I thank Dr. Marks for his dedicated service to the health of our country,” the Senator wrote. “His departure is a loss to the FDA. Commissioner Makary and Secretary Kennedy should replace him with someone of similar stature and credibility amongst the scientific community, who will lead without bias.”

Tuesday afternoon, CNN’s Manu Raju reported that he asked Cassidy about the firings of 10,000 HHS employees.

“I’m trying to understand it,” Cassidy said. “They say that they are consolidating duplicative agencies.”

Asked if he supports the firings, Cassidy replied: ‘Like I said I’m investigating.”

Back in January, Cassidy had asked RFK Jr. if he could “trust” him, as Politico reported.

Asked “if he thinks RFK Jr is backsliding on his commitments,” Raju reported, Cassidy said: “We’re in dialogue about that.”

Kennedy had told Cassidy that he was “not going to go into HHS and impose my preordained opinions on anybody at HHS. I’m going to empower the scientists to do their job.”

Many of those scientists were fired on Tuesday at 5 AM.

MSNBC analyst and Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn blasted Cassidy, writing: “Sen. Bill Cassidy, you violated the Hippocratic oath when you supported RFK Jr.’s nomination and you own this—and all the horrific consequences to come.”

Corn added a screenshot of a post from a popular epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina, detailing a few of the consequences of Tuesday’s firings.

Cassidy also came under fire on Tuesday for telling CNBC, “Is there some way that we can cut Medicare—excuse me—reform Medicare—so that benefits stay the same, but that it’s less expensive, more efficient?”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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.

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