Speaker Johnson is getting it right … finally
For those who follow my commentaries, you know that I have been calling on Congress to get its rear in gear and provide necessary funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan – with reform of immigration law to end the crisis at the southern border. We need to be all in on all of those problems.
For months, a divided and cantankerous House and a divided and cantankerous Senate have been politically mud wrestling on all of these issues. A lot of it had to do with HOW to package the legislation – and how to placate the extremes of both of the political parties.
The problem on the Republican side stems from an excessive consideration of the small number of legislators on the fringe of the Party with extremist and isolationist views – including ceding Ukraine to Russia. That group is very small, but very vocal. Their one political asset is the nuclear option of unseating a Speaker in midterm because of a totally ridiculous rule. So far, the move to oust Johnson only has two votes. Even if there are more nutcases voting to vacate the chair, Johnson would likely pick up Democrat votes – which McCarthy foolishly rejected.
On the Democrat side, President Biden has a more existential problem. The radical extremists compose a significant portion of the Democrat base – in Congress and back home. While they are mostly all in for Ukraine, they are opposed to Israel military aid – and in some cases, the existence of Israel, itself. They are more than a fringe – as we see in the street protests across the nation.
The fringe in the GOP is not a threat to a Trump reelection prospect. They are part of his base. However, the radical left in the Democratic Party is a serious threat to Biden’s reelection – and potentially any hope of Democrats maintaining control of the Senate and winning control of the House.
Johnson has announced that he will create four free standing bills. Members of the House can vote on what they like without having to support what they do not like. Those on the extreme right in the GOP can vote for aid to Israel, Taiwan and border security, and not vote for aid to Ukraine. The anti-Israel (pro-Hamas?) faction in the House can vote for Ukraine and Taiwan, and vote against aid to Israel and the bill to secure the border.
Most likely, all the bills will be passed in the House by a significant bipartisan majority. They will then be sent to the Senate for consideration – with the same dynamics at play. The bills would pass with a bipartisan majority in the upper chamber IF (ß a big if) Senate Majority Leader does not use his power to block them – as he did the immigration reform bill that the House sent to the Senate almost a year ago.
Johnson’s commonsense plan seems so logical that the only question is what has taken it so long? But no matter. Hopefully Johnson’s bills will be passed with lightning speed.
Unfortunately, there is always a chance someone – or some group – will throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the work. If that happens, Congress should change the dress code to require size 17 shoes and bulbous red noses.
So, there ‘tis.
So, making a deal with Democrats to pass a Dem priority bill is “finally getting it right”? “Johnson’s commonsense plan seems so logical because it has been the Democratic position for so long. You write “On the Democrat side, President Biden has a more existential problem” – yeah, he actually came out and praised the Republicans for “doing the right thing”, even though more Democrats voted to approve the rule than Republicans. Have you finally realized that Republicans are the party of chaos and the only way to get anything done is to do what Democrats want? Larry, have you finally come in from the cold to support the Democratic Party?
I was not aware that Ukraine is or ever has been an ally of the USA.
Joseph S. Bruder .. I can see how it may look that way to you, but I understand — and approve — of bipartisanism to get things done. Especially necessary with the Congress so divide. While the contentious bills get all the media attention, Congress actually passes bipartisan legislation a lot. I would take exception to your claiming that the package Johnson put together are merely an endorsement of Democrat legislation. It was the only way to bypass the fringe elements on both sides. You focus on Republicans who do not approve of the Ukraine aid, but ignore ethe Democrats who oppose aid to Israel. This is what good bipartisanship looks like. I just think your are too partisan to see it only as a Democrat win. I think both sides won .. and if there is one particular winner in all this, it is Speaker Johnson because it was his leadership that broke the logjam.
Capitulating to the other side to save your own ass is hardly leadership. I would put this win in Rep. Jeffrey’s corner.
Exactly as Independents see it!!!
Tom … No end to the arrogance. You may have your opinion, but you do NOT speak for all independent voters.
Actually there is no end to your insolence! I do speak for many of us! I speak for as many of us as you speak for GOP’ers. Do not drink so much Trump Kool Aide and then pretend to know the way we think!
Tom … Stop flattering your self with this crap that you speak for independents. I am sure that there are folks who agree with your opinions, but that does not make you their spokesperson. If you think so you are more than just arrogant, you are a delusional old fool. And I do not claim to speak for GOPers or any one else. I offer my opinions. I would not be so arrogant as to believe I speak for others. So get off you high horse, Waldorf.
If we had engaged in “Bruder’s” dumbasss attitude 250 years ago, the United States would never have come to be. But it’s been clear for a couple centuries that the “D” in Donk or Demnocrat stands for “dumbasss.”
Instead, America’s British colonies chose the path of compromise and let the political landscape dictate future developments.
Donks can visualize only one thing: Imposing their preferred (and usually warped) way of thinking on everyone else.
Joseph S Bruder …The problem with bipartisan deals is that some partisan fool will see it as total win for their side. And I was under the impression that entering into an agreement was not saving Johnson’s ass, but threatening his speakership. You seem to you asses ass backwards.
Actually Larry, it is you that has it ass backwards. The fact that Johnson needed (and basically begged) for Dems to help him push it over the line is an indicator that he could not have pushed it by himself. Thus, it is a win for Dems. It is also a threat to Johnson’s speakership. That is how we Independents see it. We see it as a win for the country, and both parties can claim part of it. So the Dems partisans can claim their part since it was the major part.
Tom… There you go again with that “we independents see it” crap. LOL Last time I looked, at least half the independents are voting for Trump. Your exaggeration of your self importance does not reflect well on you or your credibility. Give it up.
Yeah sure, “bipartisanism” has gotten us some of the worst legislation that our country has ever seen, i.e. the Reagan amnesty. At the time, I supported the effort because I was not yet jaded enough to realize that almost everyone involved in government, like you, are tainted by deception. “We the People” were told that there were a million illegal aliens that would receive citizenship and that we would never face the same dilemma again. 2.7 Million benefitted from the boondoggle and, well, we have all seen how the part about never happening again has worked out. Luckily, my youthful naivete has turned into a healthy distrust(read disgust) of my own government and especially those who trumpet it’s virtues. Johnson has fundamentally capitulated to his counterparts on the left and Americans will undoubtedly be left holding the bag of excrement once again.
I think the number of amnesty beneficiaries was 3.5 milllion, not 2.7 million.
Believing in the virtue — even in passing — of gummint is indeed naive. Corruption is marinated in the DNA of the institution, because it’s the product of force and deception.
As for the speaker’s scheme, I don’t blame him. We get the gummint we deserve. Johnson was selected to push forward GOP objectives. His supposed compromise moves those objectives forward. The fault for the failures it embodies lies with the electorate which had a duty but declined to follow the path of reasonableness and patriotism rather than embrace our enemies and parasites.
Doug and the DR. —- The issue at the border is Reagan, Clinton,, Bush(s), and Obama.
But tell us: Reagan “legalized” 2.7M illegals who had been living here awhile. Did something bad happen?
Yes, no one has locked down the border. Both parties to blame for all sorts of reasons. Even when Reagan passed a great bill, no one followed up on the security. Bill passed a better bill, a Republican steal like his welfare reform, and that, by definition, not only created more illegals but tougher border meant more hunkered down rather than making some money and leaving.
Illegals mostly come here to work. Ending the ability to work ends the reason to come. E-Verify does that, there are bills in Congress featuring this and once implemented nationally, the problem is generally solved overnight. It IS THAT EASY. If illegal demand end, illegal supply will drop, and border security gets far easier, focused, and serious. As in illegals ain’t coming to work, this is criminal activity.
Until E-Verify is the law of the land, I am not sure the relevance of most of the other immigration issues. Maybe Johnson should focus on that. His party owns the bill. Pretty sure it’s in the bipartisan bill as well. Plenty of places to pass it from.
Uh……has Johnson turned a corner or did he just get a bug up his butt over defense? It’s clear he’s trying to pass these bills; one datapoint does not make a bipartisan Congress.
On the record, this Congress does not pass bills on a bipartisan basis. Not yet,
Quorum found that “through March 26, the 118th Congress had enacted 42 bills, meaning that identical bills were passed by the House and Senate and then signed by the president. That was just 0.4% of the 11,877 bills introduced. This is easily the smallest number through that date as far back as the 101st Congress, which met in 1989 and 1990.”
It’s half the bills passed by the second place Congress of the 113th of 2013-2014. They got 86. They too had a Republican House and Democratic Senate.
So, at 42 bills, Mike has a ways to go before someone can say: Mission Accomplished.
And chances are he gets tossed for the effort.
As if anyone but Humper Bidet’s drug supplier cares how many federal bills were passed on absolutely identical votes. That wouldn’t be achievable most of the time regardless of circumstances for all sorts of reasons, beginning with the fact that usually one or more congressional seats are empty. But not-sees are prone to believe their own lying propaganda. They’re actually to dimwitted to do otherwise.
Just for the record, it’s a hoot that failure of both major parties to coalesce around various issues would be blamed not on both parties — each of which run a different chamber of Commerce — but rather on GOP’ers. But just about everything Goebbels nattered about tended to crumble under any significant scrutiny, just as happens with the Goebbelsian this post is directed toward.
Our political landscape these days is inhabited by a substantial coterie of America-haters who are clearly intent on harming the U.S. and its core principles and tenets. They’ll do anything in their power to muck up what’s pure, and plying their mischief as deeply as possible is just part of their happy goosestepping idjutry.
Doug practices English as a second language. I think he should be deported.
You are correct that number of bills is not a perfect assessment of quality. But if law is your game, then quantity is a metric for effective and efficient Congress is. Certainly your method of putting your head up your ass and then issuing a verdict is not better. Except for you.
Your second paragraph cannot be deciphered. Can you clarify.
Your third paragraph is a nice rant but has no support. If America is as you believe it is, why isn’t it destroy already. Or even wounded. Or even an owie.. Just seems like you are very frustrated and need someone to blame for your personal dilemma.
This article earns a Stop The Spin raring of STS-2. Here is why:
1) What took so long? Simple: MTG, Roy, Trump and his MAGA super minions and a weak speaker who was putting his personal career before backing our allies. The cantankerous House is mostly owned by the GOP!
2) It was also speaker Johnson’s leadership that previously held up the works until it finally got so critical that he feared backlash in November if he did not lead his Trump/MTG led party of chaos and lies into something that would save their asses. Otherwise history would have labeled the GOP and Johnson and MAGA movement with the failure. Johnson finally got the “I don’t care, do what you like” from his Fuhrer Trump!
3) Johnson’s kid is going into the military (Naval Academy) this fall so the thought of losing a loved one to a war was worse than sending aid and bullets while leaving the kid at home. It was so much worse that he was willing to ask Dems to save his ass from MAGA retribution.
4) Speaker Johnson has been getting relentless calls from European allies like Poland, Germany, and others to get off his ass before he is tagged with losing Western Europe!!!
Personally, I am glad Speaker Johnson finally woke up! I guess its better than never. Larry talks about Biden always being late with the aid to the Ukraine party, hell, Johnson has Biden beat!!!
What a drunquen spiel. It does reveal one thing that might not have been clear beforehand: How high the skipping goober who authored it can count — to the number 4.
Most of it, like babble about Mike Johnson’s family and the supposed barrage of long-distance calls he’s received in the last week from anonymous politicians, went into the trash at the moment their mutant author hit the “send” button.
It’s impossible to conceive that anyone with at least 10 IQ points wouldn’t see that Republicans principal affliction in the arena of passing bills stems from having such a narrow margin. To a lesser degree, we see the same pattern in the Senate, though the quasi-conscious denizens of the Senate virtually never move at a pace faster than to bumble forward.
The antics of MTG, Gaetz and their near-clones would be ignored by everyone except their constituents if the outliers didn’t have the ability to threaten their own party’s leadership on account of the fact that the two political parties have a virtual tie on the House floor.
Really, LOL. I’d love to hear how a handful of mini-MAGA-mites could have stymied the House if traditional Republicans had a firm grip of majority votes in the Congress.
The spit show launched by not-see-boyz like that above — who have the chutzpah to call Trump a fuhrer rather placing that according that appellation on Israel-bashing and black-despising Quid Pro Groper Joe Bidet — could only be conjured by a Shakespearean cauldron.
Funding Ukraine is like pouring gasoline on the money and setting it on fire. Ukraine has wiped out an entire generation of its people and along (with Joe Biden) is attempting to eliminate another generation. Putin didn’t want any other countries to join NATO, so what happened? several other countries were invited to join. Putin wanted the Ukrianian areas that wanted to be Russian because the people were mostly Russian. If Biden and Zelensky would agree to these issues, the war would be over and the killing would stop, and if they would have done so in the first place the Ukrainians wouldn’t have lost a man. This is Biden’s war. There is no way that Russia is going to lose.
Speaker Johnson show’s what is inherently wrong with most not all the republicans in the house and senate, absolutely spineless when it comes to the only border that matters
OUR’s
Doug, Stop being so stupid and showing your ignorance. Google and read the thedailybeast with this article title: trump-kept-hitler-speeches-by-his-bed-resurfaced-ivana-interview-reveals See that Donald is a Hitler fan, just like he is a Putin and Xi fan. He envies their power and authority. And he is using mindless people like you!