2023 Republican House Follies

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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by pr0ner »

Zarathud wrote: Thu Jan 19, 2023 9:17 pm The Republicans couldn't pass a 24% Fair Tax at the height of their power under Palin and Bachman in 2010.
Palin and Bachman in 2010? What?

Also, back when I listened to Neal Boortz regularly, part of the argument for the Fair Tax is that the raw price of a lot of things would go down with corporate taxes being eliminated and products would only be taxed when they are bought, not when the materials for them were bought for assembly.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by malchior »

pr0ner wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:03 amAlso, back when I listened to Neal Boortz regularly, part of the argument for the Fair Tax is that the raw price of a lot of things would go down with corporate taxes being eliminated and products would only be taxed when they are bought, not when the materials for them were bought for assembly.
Recent evidence suggests otherwise. We just cut corporate taxes significantly in 2017. Prices didn't go down. Instead corporations overwhelmingly plowed the windfall into stock buybacks and dividends.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Zarathud »

Remember the 2010 House takeover when Palin and Bachman were the Republican brand of crazy?
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by pr0ner »

malchior wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:17 am
pr0ner wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:03 amAlso, back when I listened to Neal Boortz regularly, part of the argument for the Fair Tax is that the raw price of a lot of things would go down with corporate taxes being eliminated and products would only be taxed when they are bought, not when the materials for them were bought for assembly.
Recent evidence suggests otherwise. We just cut corporate taxes significantly in 2017. Prices didn't go down. Instead corporations overwhelmingly plowed the windfall into stock buybacks and dividends.
Oh, I don't think prices would actually go down now, but that was definitely the Boortz argument back in the early 2000s for why the FairTax was a good idea and prices wouldn't automagically go up 23% 30% overnight.

It's not like the FairTax will ever become law or anything, anyway. Either in the past or now.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by pr0ner »

Zarathud wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:40 am Remember the 2010 House takeover when Palin and Bachman were the Republican brand of crazy?
By Palin do you mean Sarah Palin? She's never been in Congress.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Octavious »

pr0ner wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:49 am
malchior wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:17 am
pr0ner wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:03 amAlso, back when I listened to Neal Boortz regularly, part of the argument for the Fair Tax is that the raw price of a lot of things would go down with corporate taxes being eliminated and products would only be taxed when they are bought, not when the materials for them were bought for assembly.
Recent evidence suggests otherwise. We just cut corporate taxes significantly in 2017. Prices didn't go down. Instead corporations overwhelmingly plowed the windfall into stock buybacks and dividends.
Oh, I don't think prices would actually go down now, but that was definitely the Boortz argument back in the early 2000s for why the FairTax was a good idea and prices wouldn't automagically go up 23% 30% overnight.

It's not like the FairTax will ever become law or anything, anyway. Either in the past or now.
Well certainly not now, but they get all 3 spots? Who knows... They showed with Roe that they don't give two flips and will do anything they want. Tucker just needs to spend 3 years saying how great it will be and then bam.
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2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Zarathud »

A National Sales Tax (which the FairTax is) was bad economics in 1984 when Newt Gingrich first proposed it based on Michigan’s experience. It’s still bad economics — favoring business investment over working American consumers so drastically will be self-destructive to the U.S. economy. The shock at the point of sale would kill purchasers. Even if prices eventually decreased (which I doubt given prior tax cuts), the disruption would cause major damage.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Smoove_B »

More commentary on the House GOP tax plan:
To provide a little background, income and wealth inequality in America have not been more extreme since before the New Deal. While the average family income in America is about $54,000 per year, the top 1% average income tops $1,700,000 annually. CEOs earn 342 times more than the average worker they employ.

In terms of wealth inequality, the US of A has the greatest disparity of any developed nation in the world. The top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 60% of Americans, and in the last two years, the top 1% have accumulated 99% of all new wealth created. The share of all wealth held by the top 1 percent rose from 30% in 1989 to 42% in 2021, while the share held by the bottom 90 percent fell from 33% to 21%. That’s right. The top 1% now control double the wealth of the bottom 90%!

...

In the face of all of this, House Republicans have the bold idea of giving a huge tax cut to the wealthiest among us, paid for by an enormous tax increase on everyone else. In other words, let’s take a ton of money from people who have very little, and give it to those who have way more than they’ll ever need. Genius!

Specifically, here’s what the “Fair Tax” does. It completely eliminates the income tax, the payroll tax and the estate tax, and replaces it all with a 30% sales tax. That would elminate all taxes based on how much you earn or how much you own, and instead tax people as a percentage of what they spend. The problem with this is that the poorer you are, the larger proportion of your income you spend just to stay alive.
I get that it's been proposed before, but that it's being pushed now - and with more energy than we've seen - is quite puzzling (to me). This is really how they think they can build momentum heading into 2024? That the "common clay" is going to get on board with a 30% tax on everything?
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by msteelers »

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:05 pmI get that it's been proposed before, but that it's being pushed now - and with more energy than we've seen - is quite puzzling (to me). This is really how they think they can build momentum heading into 2024? That the "common clay" is going to get on board with a 30% tax on everything?
It has a 0% chance of passing. The big money donors who love this idea will be excited to see it pushed forward and the regular folk won't even know what the hell it is. At most they might hear "Fair Tax" and think "that sounds pretty good!"

FWIW, when I worked in radio we had a guy pushing for this hard. We repeatedly argued over how it was a stupid idea that would crush the average American, but he insisted that prices would go down and the net would be cheaper goods for everybody.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by malchior »

pr0ner wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:49 am
malchior wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:17 am
pr0ner wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:03 amAlso, back when I listened to Neal Boortz regularly, part of the argument for the Fair Tax is that the raw price of a lot of things would go down with corporate taxes being eliminated and products would only be taxed when they are bought, not when the materials for them were bought for assembly.
Recent evidence suggests otherwise. We just cut corporate taxes significantly in 2017. Prices didn't go down. Instead corporations overwhelmingly plowed the windfall into stock buybacks and dividends.
Oh, I don't think prices would actually go down now, but that was definitely the Boortz argument back in the early 2000s for why the FairTax was a good idea and prices wouldn't automagically go up 23% 30% overnight.
Right - this flat tax argument isn't new. And I'd suspect the argument was as falsely premised then as it is now. *Shrug*.
It's not like the FairTax will ever become law or anything, anyway. Either in the past or now.
Indeed. The worst part is that the actually fair and efficient alternative the Value Added Tax doesn't even get a word in edgewise in the discussion.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:05 pm More commentary on the House GOP tax plan:
To provide a little background, income and wealth inequality in America have not been more extreme since before the New Deal. While the average family income in America is about $54,000 per year, the top 1% average income tops $1,700,000 annually. CEOs earn 342 times more than the average worker they employ.

In terms of wealth inequality, the US of A has the greatest disparity of any developed nation in the world. The top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 60% of Americans, and in the last two years, the top 1% have accumulated 99% of all new wealth created. The share of all wealth held by the top 1 percent rose from 30% in 1989 to 42% in 2021, while the share held by the bottom 90 percent fell from 33% to 21%. That’s right. The top 1% now control double the wealth of the bottom 90%!

...

In the face of all of this, House Republicans have the bold idea of giving a huge tax cut to the wealthiest among us, paid for by an enormous tax increase on everyone else. In other words, let’s take a ton of money from people who have very little, and give it to those who have way more than they’ll ever need. Genius!

Specifically, here’s what the “Fair Tax” does. It completely eliminates the income tax, the payroll tax and the estate tax, and replaces it all with a 30% sales tax. That would elminate all taxes based on how much you earn or how much you own, and instead tax people as a percentage of what they spend. The problem with this is that the poorer you are, the larger proportion of your income you spend just to stay alive.
I get that it's been proposed before, but that it's being pushed now - and with more energy than we've seen - is quite puzzling (to me). This is really how they think they can build momentum heading into 2024? That the "common clay" is going to get on board with a 30% tax on everything?
Well, you have to remember that they're a bunch of crazy and/or stupid lunatics. And that it's important to keep their donors happy.

Honestly seems like Democrats should be fine with having a vote on this. Though obviously they have a lot more crazy / stupid demands that they'd want satisfied in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, not just this.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by malchior »

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:05 pmI get that it's been proposed before, but that it's being pushed now - and with more energy than we've seen - is quite puzzling (to me). This is really how they think they can build momentum heading into 2024? That the "common clay" is going to get on board with a 30% tax on everything?
Proposals like this exist to take up space. It's chief purpose is to redirect and steal oxygen from other conversations. If it happens to become law, well that's just gravy but there is no need for that to occur to rank something like this as a political success.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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malchior wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:49 pm
Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:05 pmI get that it's been proposed before, but that it's being pushed now - and with more energy than we've seen - is quite puzzling (to me). This is really how they think they can build momentum heading into 2024? That the "common clay" is going to get on board with a 30% tax on everything?
Proposals like this exist to take up space. It's chief purpose is to redirect and steal oxygen from other conversations. If it happens to become law, well that's just gravy but there is need for that to occur to rank something like this as a political success.
There's definitely also an ideological component to this. The far right is motivated out of a belief that poor (disproportionately minority) people are mooching off of the virtuous "job creators", and this stuff is part of how they want to fix that grave injustice.

Whether the particular person is motivated by crazy ideology or grift is sometimes hard to tell.

Also I will say that there is genuine value to the far right in getting a vote on this even if it's doomed. With a vote the idea becomes part of the political conversation in a significant way, and is far more likely to become law if and when the GOP regains full control of government.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Kurth »

I don't even understand this at a basic conceptual level. Doesn't this proposed "Fair Tax" incentivize accumulating wealth but not spending it? Isn't that the opposite of what we want to be doing to drive economic growth?

I'm no economist. Got my lowest grade in college -- a D -- in International Economics (I retook the course, too, and only managed a C+). But this seems like a crazy concept on its face. Can someone be a helpful devil's advocate here and explain why anyone would think this is good policy?
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Kurth wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 1:52 pm I don't even understand this at a basic conceptual level. Doesn't this proposed "Fair Tax" incentivize accumulating wealth but not spending it? Isn't that the opposite of what we want to be doing to drive economic growth?

I'm no economist. Got my lowest grade in college -- a D -- in International Economics (I retook the course, too, and only managed a C+). But this seems like a crazy concept on its face. Can someone be a helpful devil's advocate here and explain why anyone would think this is good policy?
I really think the Devil is just giving a non-committal shrug here.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by malchior »

El Guapo wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:51 pmThere's definitely also an ideological component to this. The far right is motivated out of a belief that poor (disproportionately minority) people are mooching off of the virtuous "job creators", and this stuff is part of how they want to fix that grave injustice.
Yeah that is the overarching narrative. I don't particularly buy many truly believe it or are doing anything but repeating it out of pure ignorance.
Also I will say that there is genuine value to the far right in getting a vote on this even if it's doomed. With a vote the idea becomes part of the political conversation in a significant way, and is far more likely to become law if and when the GOP regains full control of government.
FWIW I don't think anyone but a small handful of radicals actually want this to actually become law. Most of them are a party to the shenanigans if not outright grift around carve outs and incentives delivered through the existing tax system.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Zarathud »

The argument for the National Sales Tax is that allegedly savers vote Republican, while spenders vote Democratic. If you see a tax bill every time you go shopping, you might want to sign up for the Republican plan to abolish government. That’s the end goal — reward supporters and build a tax rebellion.

But Republicans should be afraid of giving liberals the ability to cleanly fund government out of consumer spending. The simple way to offset the regressive burden on the poor is to establish a minimum income stipend as a “rebate.” But the current Republican Party is too stupid to realize it.

With price instability and COVID economic disruption, this is the worst time for the idea. Too much uncertainty will ruin the economy.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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In case you thought the follies were over:


NEW: Matt Gaetz was SECRETLY added to the Weaponization of Government Subcommittee. Kevin McCarthy submitted the change to the Congressional Journal without any public announcement & it took a CNN reporter to discover the change. This isn’t how Congress is supposed to function.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Wow, do Magic The Gathering and Lorena Bobbitt feel left out for not being on that committee? That's a who's who there of Federal Government Weaponizers. Like Devin Nunes wants to quit working for Trump and get his seat back for that committee.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Things are going great:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) dared his right-wing haters to try to take away his speaker’s gavel during a closed-door meeting Thursday morning.

“If you want to file a motion to vacate, then file the fucking motion,” McCarthy told his Republican colleagues, according to Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), a McCarthy supporter.

The federal government will partially shut down at the end of the month if Congress can’t pass a spending bill, and House Republicans have no clear plan to pass one.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Smoove_B wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 2:32 pm Things are going great:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) dared his right-wing haters to try to take away his speaker’s gavel during a closed-door meeting Thursday morning.

“If you want to file a motion to vacate, then file the fucking motion,” McCarthy told his Republican colleagues, according to Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), a McCarthy supporter.

The federal government will partially shut down at the end of the month if Congress can’t pass a spending bill, and House Republicans have no clear plan to pass one.
Enlarge Image
Per the Impeachment thread, this HuffPost article is missing a lot of detail and gets it all WRONG, save for the money quote. HC Richardson has the details again.

this is the worst part of the HuffPo reporting:
As has been the case all year, McCarthy is caught between ultraconservative members of the House Freedom Caucus, who are insisting on lower spending levels than the Senate or the White House would accept, and the rest of his conference.
the real details are that they are insisting on a LOT more which has NOTHING to do with spending:
the extremists have loaded the must-pass bills with demands unrelated to the bill itself. They have put measures restricting abortion and gender-affirming care in at least 8 of the 12 bills. ...

...Freedom Caucus members appear to be increasing their demands as a shutdown looms. In August, the caucus announced it would not support even a short-term funding bill unless it also included their own demands for border policy, an end to what they call “woke” policies in the Department of Defense, and what they call the “unprecedented weaponization” of the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They also oppose funding for Ukraine to enable it to fight off Russia’s invasion.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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I'm assuming they continue to get paid if the government shuts down? And continue to get health, etc.? I really wish they were on the chopping block first. Then I bet we'd see compromise. Of course, that would never ever happen. (That anything of "theirs" would be on the block.)

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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Pyperkub wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 2:54 pm
As has been the case all year, McCarthy is caught between ultraconservative members of the House Freedom Caucus, who are insisting on lower spending levels than the Senate or the White House would accept, and the rest of his conference.
This framing really needs to end. They're all* ultraconservative.

* - effectively all.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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TheMix wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 3:11 pm I'm assuming they continue to get paid if the government shuts down? And continue to get health, etc.? I really wish they were on the chopping block first. Then I bet we'd see compromise. Of course, that would never ever happen. (That anything of "theirs" would be on the block.)
They think they are compromising by letting government continue function as long as we impeach Biden and ban abortions in the military and purge woke in government and only spending the way the Freedom Caucus wants to spend. They need to go and there's nothing you or I can do about it short of refusing product and service from state or district. Leading directly to why no GOP member will get my vote at any level, barring a truly despicable person being their opponent and I mean truly despicable, until there as been demonstrable enduring change.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Pyperkub »

Zaxxon wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 3:20 pm
Pyperkub wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2023 2:54 pm
As has been the case all year, McCarthy is caught between ultraconservative members of the House Freedom Caucus, who are insisting on lower spending levels than the Senate or the White House would accept, and the rest of his conference.
This framing really needs to end. They're all* ultraconservative.

* - effectively all.
IMHO, you're focussing on the wrong part - the framing that needs to end is that it's lower spending levels they care about, which is false.

the only degree they care about lower spending levels is how much it hurts Biden (and, given the IRS/Carried Interest loopholes/other tax shenanigans) how much they can throw in to benefit their donors owners
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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I’d agree with you that that’s also important. But both are ridiculous frames.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by waitingtoconnect »

Next time they’ll stop the government until there is a full investigation into Jewish space lasers…
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Smoove_B »

Things are going great:
Hard-line conservatives in the House sank a procedural vote on a Pentagon funding bill Tuesday, a significant setback for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Five Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the rule for the appropriations bill, bringing the final vote to 214-212 — short of the majority support needed.

The conservative opposition — Reps. Dan Bishop (N.C.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.) and Ken Buck (Colo.) — prevents the House from debating the legislation on the floor and, subsequently, voting on whether to pass it.

The failed vote came hours after House GOP leadership pulled a procedural vote on the conference’s proposal for a short-term funding bill amid opposition from hard-line conservatives — another setback for McCarthy.

The House has less than two weeks to extend government funding past Sept. 30 or risk a shutdown.
Of note:
Over the weekend, though, McCarthy vowed to bring the bill to the floor “win or lose, and show the American public who’s for the Department of Defense, who’s for our military, who’s for giving them a pay raise and who’s for making sure we can take the wokeism out.”
I didn't realize this was somehow connected to Senator Tuberville.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Smoove_B »

Now that he budget has been resolved for a solid 45 days, let's get back to follies:
Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing an extraordinary referendum on his leadership of the House after a conservative member of his own Republican majority, a longtime critic, moved to launch a vote to oust him from the helm.

Late Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., rose in the chamber as the House was almost done for the day to file the motion — a resolution that would set a snap vote in coming days that even Gaetz acknowledged may not have enough support to remove the speaker from the job.

“I have enough Republicans where at this point next week, one of two things will happen: Kevin McCarthy won’t be the speaker of the House or he’ll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats,” Gaetz told reporters afterward outside the Capitol.

McCarthy responded minutes later on social media, “Bring it on.”
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Kurth »

So, if Gaetz fails in this attempt to oust McCarthy, what next? Do we at least get to rejoice in Gaetz' failure and presumptive banishment to some closet in the basement of the Cannon building and loss of all his committee appointments? There has to be some consequences for taking this shot at McCarthy, right? Or is McCarthy really that weak that he just has to endure snap vote after snap vote after snap vote . . . etc.?
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Smoove_B »

Not sure if he could be stripped of his committee positions, but as long as he has enough votes to keep bringing these type of motions to the floor, the insanity will continue. I'd imagine the bigger play is to let anyone that supports Gaetz know they're also going on a short list. However, that would require the GOP to take action against their splintering radical faction and I'm not sure they will.

I still want to know what McCarthy said to Gaetz during the ~14th Speaker vote that had Gaetz visibly changing his demeanor. Whatever he was threatened with apparently was short-lived.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Kraken »

Gaetz has got to be the Democrats' favorite Republican of the day. Just keep on being you, Matt.
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 02, 2023 11:24 pm Gaetz has got to be the Democrats' favorite Republican of the day. Just keep on being you, Matt.
Hated by both sides...nice!

Saw reference to a couple anonymous quotes by Gaetz' fellow R lawmakers over the past week, one was “No one can stand him at this point. A smart guy without morals,”
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El Guapo
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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The threat that's being dangled against Gaetz is potential expulsion for ethics violations.
Black Lives Matter.
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Smoove_B
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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El Guapo wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 10:38 am The threat that's being dangled against Gaetz is potential expulsion for ethics violations.
Even though all federal charges have been dropped against him (February of 2023)? Are there other charges (besides the dropped sex trafficking ones) that I'm not aware of?

Oh maybe this, which apparently went nowhere? They're probably very busy with George Santos.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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El Guapo
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 10:42 am
El Guapo wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 10:38 am The threat that's being dangled against Gaetz is potential expulsion for ethics violations.
Even though all federal charges have been dropped against him (February of 2023)? Are there other charges (besides the dropped sex trafficking ones) that I'm not aware of?

Oh maybe this, which apparently went nowhere? They're probably very busy with George Santos.
I don't know. Honestly probably doesn't really matter, as it's not like anyone would react to this by saying "Gaetz?! But he's so clean and above board!"
Black Lives Matter.
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raydude
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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msteelers wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:22 pm FWIW, when I worked in radio we had a guy pushing for this hard. We repeatedly argued over how it was a stupid idea that would crush the average American, but he insisted that prices would go down and the net would be cheaper goods for everybody.
I really don't get why someone would even think that. A simple argument like "I'm the CEO of Trader Joes. Fair Tax gets passed. I keep the prices as-is because I don't feel like losing profits. Done." should shut it down.
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Smoove_B
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

Post by Smoove_B »

El Guapo wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 10:48 am I don't know. Honestly probably doesn't really matter, as it's not like anyone would react to this by saying "Gaetz?! But he's so clean and above board!"
More:
"Matt Gaetz had planned to do this from the very beginning," McCarthy said Tuesday on "Squawk Box."

"He has personal things in his life that he has challenges with. That's fine," McCarthy said.
This season of Republican House Follies is lit!

Of note:
"He's blaming me for an ethics complaint against him that happened in the last Congress," McCarthy said. "I have nothing to do with it."

"He wants me to try to wipe that away," McCarthy said.

"I'm not going to do that. That's illegal," the California lawmaker said.

"And you know what? If some way I lose my job because I uphold the law [and the] continuity of government, so be it."
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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Zaxxon
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2023 11:55 am Of note:
"And you know what? If some way I lose my job because I uphold the law [and the] continuity of government, so be it."
Oh, yeah. Kevin McCarthy, paragon of the continuity of government.
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Zaxxon
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Re: 2023 Republican House Follies

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