slade's Link
House Republicans try to make it harder for Speakers to be replaced BY TAYLOR MILLARD
House Republicans appear to be trying to make it harder for rank-and-file revolts, like the one which caused John Boehner to step down last year, from happening again. California Congressman Devin Nunes told Roll Call, his proposal would keep leadership vacuums from happening.
The proposed change, offered by Rep. Devin Nunes, would end the privileged status of the motion to vacate that allows any member to call up the motion for a vote at any time. The California Republican is proposing that instead the majority or minority caucus must vote on the motion and that a majority of the caucus must approve it before it can be called up for a floor vote. “We know the turmoil that can be created with a huge leadership vacuum in the Congress,” Nunes said. FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon isn’t happy with the proposal.
“The motion to vacate the chair is the most powerful tool members of the House have to ensure that the speaker is kept in check. It’s the sword of Damocles that hangs over the head of whomever happens to hold the office…Sadly, Rep. Nunes has been working to limit the democratic prerogatives of the members of the House of Representatives. [He] proposed a roadblock: before the motion [to remove the Speaker] can be brought up in the House, that member’s party conference in the House would have to sign off on moving ahead. And since these entities are controlled by either the speaker or the minority leader, approval just won’t happen. That is exactly what Rep. Nunes wants.” Here’s the current rules from Jefferson’s Manual on how a Speaker gets removed from the position.
Sec. 315. Removal of the Speaker. A Speaker may be removed at the will of the House, and a Speaker pro tempore appointed, 2 Grey, 186; 5 Grey, 134. Want to know how many times a Speaker has been removed by the “will of the House”? Zero. Zilch. Nada. There have been plenty of behind the scenes revolts like when South Carolina Congressman Mick Mulvaney tried to get Boehner removed last summer, even though a vote never happened. Newt Gingrich resigned in 1997 after a failed revolt by House leadership (including Boehner). This isn’t congressmen and women challenging each other to duels, but the typical unhappiness with leadership the right is wont to have. It seems rather ridiculous for Nunes to suggest this change because of past history, and it’s just a way for those in power to tamp down on revolts.
The House should obviously reject this rule change, but how should voters feel? This fight is all pretty much inside baseball and it’s doubtful the typical Tom, Dick, and Harry really care about what goes on inside the chambers of Congress. This is why it’s up to activists to message appropriately for audiences on how this affects the average person who doesn’t care about politics. It’s not an easy sale, and maybe the best way to tackle this is through the local electoral process. Talk to your own congressman on how he or she feels about potential rule changes. Encourage congressmen to hold town halls where they can hear from their constituents and get to know their staff and advisers. Press them on the issue without being jerky about it. Keep congressmen and women accountable when they cast votes which go against their stated values. That at least shows people are paying attention to what their so-called leaders are doing behind closed doors.
So no, Congress shouldn’t make this change to the House rules, and kudos to FreedomWorks for paying attention to what was being considered. It’s now up to us to contact our own representatives to make sure this doesn’t happen.
On Friday, the Clinton Campaign (Washington Post) released video of Donald Trump bragging about grabbing p*ssy in an off the record conversation with Billy Bush.
The Los Angeles Times reported hours after audio was released of Donald Trump making sexually suggestive comments about a woman, that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan castigated Trump and said he would no longer attend their scheduled event on Saturday.
“I am sickened by what I heard today,” Ryan said in a statement. “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.”
Paul Ryan was scheduled to campaign with Trump for the first time on Saturday. It never happened.
Funny how @PRyan finally decides to appear w/ #Trump – only to publicly cancel and attack him! Funny how that works. https://t.co/XBJ20McXC5
— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) October 8, 2016
On Sunday Donald Trump crushed Hillary Clinton in one of the most lopsided debates in political history. It was a brilliant performance. Trump made everyone forget about the WaPo tape.
On Monday Paul Ryan sabotaged Donald Trump again and changed the political narrative.
Ryan announced he will not campaign with or defend Donald Trump for the rest of the election cycle. This was an odd statement considering Paul Ryan has not once defended Donald Trump this year. He’s only attacked Trump, the record-setting Republican primary winner.
Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr. suggested today that GOP elites may have leaked the video.
Now this… There are “rumors” that Paul Ryan’s close advisor #NeverTrumper Dan Senor is behind the leaks.
.@dansenor Writing about #BillyBush tapes, hearing your wife (ex NBC) got a hold of tapes and you pushed the story for your boss. Comment?
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) October 11, 2016
I spoke with a reporter tonight who believes the reports are true. It was GOP elites who released the audio to the Washington Post.
Dan Senor has been pushing the WaPo audio all day. He is determined to keep the story alive. And he’s a Republican?
Note to media: if interviewing Trump surrogates today, focus q's on tape. Besides Rudy, these surrogates were all hiding over the weekend1/2
— Dan Senor (@dansenor) October 10, 2016
Now Trump surrogates magically appear b/c debate wasn't a disaster. You shld intv them abt the tape, as though the debate never occurred 2/2
— Dan Senor (@dansenor) October 10, 2016
This is outrageous.
“Leaders are supposed to stand firm and solid in moments of crisis,” Rohrabacher told the Orange County Register. “Instead, he’s in a panic. It’s not good leadership. … I think the Republicans who are backing away are gutless. We don’t have to just be concerned about saving House seats. We have to be concerned about saving the United States of America.”
On Tuesday Falwell Jr. went on with Lou Dobbs to discuss the leaked Trump audio. Falwell told Dobbs GOP elites were plotting to destroy Trump before election day.
Jerry Falwell, Jr.: The whole story just fell in my lap about six or eight weeks ago. I got a phone call from someone who is very close to the top establishment candidates and the Republican Party, people who wanted to be president over the last four or five years. He told me, “Jerry something strange is going on. They’re meeting regularly. And they tell me it is a certainty that Donald Trump will not be the nominee on November 8th. And I called one of Trump’s attorneys and I told him about it. There were no more details than that. So there’s nothing anybody could do. But then when I saw what happened this weekend, and I saw how quickly all the usual suspects jumped on it and started to call on Trump to step down as the nominee… It was just too much of a coincidence… It really tells me it was some sort of conspiracy. I went to the proper authorities and told them what I was told. It’s probably too late to prosecute anybody… It’s not only despicable. I think it maybe rises to the level of criminal behavior…
…I think it rises to the level of people who were candidates in the last four years or five years. And so it’s very high level.
Lou Dobbs: Is it a coincidence there would be a Bush involved in a cast of names?
Jerry Falwell, Jr.: There’s too many strange coincidences in this whole episode this weekend in my view. There may be nothing to it but it did fall in my lap. And I did tell WABC radio about it.
This interview will blow your mind– Special Projects Director of Citizens4Trump Jack Posobiec was interviewed by YourVoice™ Radio co-host Cari Kelemen on Tuesday.
ryan trump Jack explained in detail EXACTLY what went down with the infamous Trump audio and how it was all just a coup attempt by GOP elites.
In July of 2015, an illegal alien allegedly broke into the home a 64-year-old Air Force veteran Marilyn Pharis while she was asleep in her bedroom. Using a claw hammer, the illegal alien and his accomplice began savagely beating the elderly woman, according to police. Authorities say they shattered her eye sockets, strangled her, broke her neck bone, raped her, and left her for dead.
Pharis, described by her family as a “gentle” woman, desperately tried to fight back as she was pinned down in her own bed under the heavy weight of her assailant as he was crushing the bones in her face with his hammer, according to police.
Pharis died a few days later in the hospital.
The illegal alien accused of assaulting Pharis had been arrested six times in just the 15 months leading up to her rape and murder, but he was never removed from the country.
There is no public record that House Speaker Paul Ryan has ever spoken out about Pharis’ sexual assault.
Instead, five months after Pharis’ sexual assault, Speaker Ryan voted to grant federal funding to continue the sanctuary policies which local authorities say were responsible for Pharis’ death.
In 2014, when Pharis’ assailant had been arrested on prior felony drug and sexual assault charges, ICE issued a detainer for the illegal alien, “but the Santa Maria’s sheriff’s office declined to honor [ICE’s detainer] because of a local sanctuary policy,” wrote Senator Chuck Grassley’s office. Instead the illegal alien with prior sexual assault charges was allowed to remain in the U.S.– eventually going on to brutally rape and kill Pharis, according to police. Local authorities said that the nation’s federal immigration policies were to blame for her assault. “I am not remiss to say that from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, there’s a blood trail into the bedroom of Marilyn Pharis,” said Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin.
Yet late last year, when Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions tried to put forward a proposal that would have included language in the year-end omnibus spending bill to end Sanctuary Cities, Ryan failed to include the language in the bill. As a result, Ryan’s omnibus allowed the lawless sanctuary cities policies and the victimization of innocent American women to continue.
According to a 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office, there are 70,000 sexual offenses attached to the incarcerated criminal alien population.
Ryan has remained passive and quiet as criminal aliens have assaulted tens of thousands of American women, but when an 11-year-old audio tape emerged of Donald Trump caught on a hot mic discussing women in crass terms, Ryan declared himself “sickened” and spoke out.
“I am sickened by what I heard today,” Ryan said in a statement, referring to Trump’s lewd private locker-room style banter with Billy Bush.
“Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified,” he declared. “I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.”
The day after Paul Ryan was “sickened” by Trump’s decade-old comments, police say a 35-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador broke into the home of a Texas family in the middle of the night, kidnapped the family’s six-year-old daughter while her parents were asleep, took the girl to a park, and raped her.
Police said that they were only able to find the child because someone had heard the little girl’s screams. When the authorities found her, she immediately ran towards the police officers and was visibly “very scared.”
There is no public record of Speaker Ryan speaking out against the alleged sexual assault of this six-year-old girl, nor did Ryan seem to feel the need to take immediate actions that would prevent future assaults of this nature.
Ryan’s statement — describing Trump’s comments as “sickening” — came the same night that WikiLeaks revealed that Hillary Clinton had privately told a group of foreign bankers that her “dream” was to enact “open trade and open borders.”
Speaker Ryan’s record of open borders advocacy syncs up with Clinton’s “dream,” as well as the agendas of wealthy Republican donors like the Koch brothers.
The overwhelming similarities between the goals of establishment leaders in both political parties and the goals of their wealthy corporate donors recently prompted Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein to denounce Hillary Clinton as a corporatist and the face of “#TheNewRepublicanParty.” “Both Democrats and Republicans are funded by big corporate interests,” Stein wrote, noting that these members of Washington’s “uniparty” are united in their shared desire to advance the goals of their wealthy donors rather than the desires of the people.
Indeed, several reports have documented how Ryan would likely accomplish more of his and the Republican Party’s donor class legislative goals on foreign trade, foreign migration, and foreign wars if Hillary Clinton were in the White House than if Donald Trump were president.
Throughout the election, several conservatives have argued that many of Ryan’s statements and actions have seemed designed to undermine Trump and the Republican Party’s chances of electoral success.
The day after Trump’s strong debate performance against Clinton, Ryan made headlines by telling GOP House members that he would not defend their party’s nominee, who was overwhelmingly selected by the Republican voters whom Ryan is supposed to represent. At the same time, former Ryan adviser Dan Senor urged members of corporate media not to talk about Trump’s success at the debate, but to instead focus on the decade-old leaked audio recording of Trump and Billy Bush.
“Note to media: if interviewing Trump surrogates today, focus q’s on tape. Besides Rudy, these surrogates were all hiding over the weekend,” Senor tweeted. “Now Trump surrogates magically appear b/c debate wasn’t a disaster. You shld intv them abt the tape, as though the debate never occurred.”
Ryan’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
YouGov: Paul Ryan’s favorable rating among Republicans drops 28 points — in a week
Sen. John McCain is quickly walking back his statement that Republicans would automatically oppose any potential Supreme Court nominee from Hillary Clinton.
Rachael Dean, a spokeswoman for the GOP senator, said that while McCain "believes you can only judge people by their record" and the Democratic presidential nominee "has a clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees," the Arizona senator would consider any Supreme Court pick sent to the chamber.
"Senator McCain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career," she said.
The pivot comes hours after McCain pledged that Senate Republicans would unite against any Supreme Court nominee that a hypothetical President Clinton would try to get confirmed.
"I promise you that we will, we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton - if she were president - would put up," the Arizona Republican told a Philadelphia radio station on Monday. "This is why we need the majority."
Republicans have put the late Justice Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court seat at the center of their push for winning the White House and keeping control of Congress, stressing that whoever fills the vacancy could decide the direction of the court for decades. They've also refused to consider Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee.
Republicans are defending 24 Senate seats. To win control of the Senate, Democrats need to pick up five seats, or four if Clinton is in the White House.
McCain also cast doubt Monday on whether GOP nominee Donald Trump would be "superior" to Clinton because of his potential Supreme Court nominees, saying, "I don't know because I hear him saying a lot of different things."
McCain is up for reelection and is leading in the polls by an average of 16 percentage points, according to Real Clear Politics. He revoked his endorsement of Trump earlier this month.
But Trump has earned praise from some conservatives for floating roughly 20 names, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), as potential Supreme Court nominees should he win the White House.
McCain's initial comments were a break from pledges by some of his Senate GOP colleagues that they will consider- though not necessarily support - any Supreme Court nominee that the next president submits.
The #NeverTrump Republican candidate last week told reporters Republicans are racist.
The #NeverTrump GOP candidate Evan McMullin is working to eliminate Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton.
