Biden pushes McCarthy to fulfill what he previously called 'our very first responsibility'

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday March 30, 2023 · 9:00 AM PDT

2023/03/30 · 09:00

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 24: U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), joined by fellow Republican lawmakers, holds a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on March 24, 2023 in Washington, DC. McCarthy spoke after the House passed the Parents Bill of Rights Act, 213-208, sending the bill to the Senate. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) — Kevin McCarthy.

House Republicans are passing a major energy bill Thursday … that has no chance to pass the Senate or be signed into law by President Joe Biden, because it’s awful. But hey, House Republicans are taking a break from not getting things done and getting something done! And then they’re going on recess for two weeks, like you do. Meanwhile, Biden continues to press House Republicans on their failure to make progress on producing a budget and moving ahead with debt limit negotiations.

The “Lower Energy Costs Act” would slash environmental regulations, increase oil drilling and mining on public land, and repeal parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. Despite the name, an outside expert told The Washington Post it wasn’t at all clear the bill would lower energy costs overall, in part because repealing parts of the Inflation Reduction Act making renewable energy cheaper would counteract any of the cost savings from other parts of the bill. And, of course, going for more fossil fuels now with fewer regulations is a long-term cost—climate change is one of the most expensive things the United States and the rest of the world faces on a pure financial level (to say nothing of the loss of life), and trying to save consumers a couple cents a gallon on gas now while speeding the arrival of climate devastation is the ultimate in bad Republican math.

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday March 30, 2023 · 7:11 AM PDT

2023/03/30 · 07:11

A child weeps while on the bus leaving The Covenant School following a mass shooting at the school in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, March 27, 2023. (Nicole Hester/The Tennessean via AP)

UPDATE: Thursday, Mar 30, 2023 · 4:39:10 PM +00:00 · Laura Clawson

Kevin McCarthy, obfuscating: “The problem we are at today, it's not just gonna be a legislation,” he says, as if he plans any legislation. No, he says, “We gotta have a severe conversation here with this country.” How about a serious conversation and legislation, Kevin?

Tensions flared in the House on Wednesday in the wake of the school shooting in Nashville that killed three 9-year-old children and three adults, with Democrats expressing urgency about protecting children from slaughter and Republicans answering with their usual “nothing can happen” shrug.

After Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a former high school principal, told reporters, “They have control of the House. The American people need to know that they don’t have the courage to do anything to save the lives of children,” he was approached by Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the most extreme right House Republicans. As the two argued about the issue, with Massie claiming “there’s never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry,” Bowman noted, “More guns lead to more deaths,” calling on Massie to “Look at the data.” (There is a direct correlation between weaker gun laws and increased gun deaths.)

At one point, Massie had the nerve to tell Bowman to “calm down,” to which Bowman replied, “Calm down? Children are dying!”

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Thursday March 30, 2023 · 6:00 AM PDT

2023/03/30 · 06:00

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on November 19, 2022. (Photo by Wade Vandervort / AFP) (Photo by WADE VANDERVORT/AFP via Getty Images)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is trying to weaken freedom of the press—and some Republicans are worried that it might hurt right-wing media. DeSantis wants to make it easier to sue news organizations for defamation, gutting the Supreme Court’s New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark ruling that requires public figures to prove “actual malice,” meaning that the reporter or outlet knew that the information was false or at least seriously doubted its validity.

If you’re asking, “Can Florida just pass a law violating Supreme Court precedent,” the answer, of course, is … it can if what it really wants is a court case inviting the current Supreme Court to weaken freedom of the press nationally. That is the goal, as Florida House Speaker Paul Renner admitted, saying the bill “is designed to challenge current constitutional law” and “tee up a court case.”

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday March 29, 2023 · 1:03 PM PDT

2023/03/29 · 13:03

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 29: Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 29, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Committee will be discussing the formation of unions at Starbucks stores across the country and hear from witnesses who have allegedly been fired for their efforts to organize unions. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) — Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

Sen. Bernie Sanders got former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to testify to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee only by threatening him with a subpoena. Once there, Schultz, the Starbucks founder who recently stepped down (again) as CEO, was as evasive as you’d expect of someone who did his best to get out of publicly answering questions under oath.

At issue was the massive anti-union campaign Starbucks has carried out under Schultz’s leadership, as workers at more than 275 stores have voted to unionize. Just this month, a federal administrative law judge ruled that Starbucks had illegally fired six workers in New York state, a move that came just six months after Starbucks lost its appeal and was ordered to reinstate seven Memphis workers it had illegally fired. The National Labor Relations Board has issued more than 80 complaints against Starbucks, and those complaints allege hundreds of labor law violations. Starbucks has aggressively contested these charges, spending piles of money on an anti-union law firm, but it keeps losing.

That’s Howard Schultz’s legacy, and what Bernie Sanders called him in to explain.

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday March 29, 2023 · 10:10 AM PDT

2023/03/29 · 10:10

DRIGGS, ID - JULY 2: A group of teenagers protests the Supreme Court's decision in the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health case on July 2, 2022 on the main street in Driggs, Idaho. A trigger law could ban nearly all abortions in Idaho 30 days after the issuance of the judgment in any decision returning abortion legislating to states. (Photo by Natalie Behring/Getty Images) — Idaho teens protest the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling

In his concurring opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the right to interstate travel is constitutionally protected. Idaho Republicans are working on finding a way around that, at least for minors. They’re creating a whole new crime: “abortion trafficking.”

An “adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion … or obtains an abortion-inducing drug for the pregnant minor to use for an abortion by recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor within this state commits the crime of abortion trafficking,” according to the bill.

Curious term, that. Human trafficking, according to the Department of Homeland Security, “involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.” But Idaho Republicans are slapping the word “trafficking” onto an older friend or sibling who helps a teenager scared to tell her parents she’s pregnant get medical care, and they’re making it a felony punishable by two to five years in prison.

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday March 29, 2023 · 7:30 AM PDT

2023/03/29 · 07:30

Peopel gather at a makeshift memorial for victims of a shooting at the Covenant School campus, in Nashville, Tennessee, March 29, 2023. - A heavily armed former student killed three young children and three staff in what appeared to be a carefully planned attack at a private elementary school in Nashville on March 27, 2023, before being shot dead by police..Chief of Police John Drake named the suspect as Audrey Hale, 28, who the officer later said identified as transgender. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Six people are dead—three 9-year-old children and three adults—in the Nashville school shooting, and Republicans are hard at work selling their message that nothing needs to happen in response. Even when Republicans aren’t trying to blame trans people rather than guns for a type of crime committed at least 95% of the time by cisgender men and 100% of the time with guns, their message is consistent: There’s no problem here that anyone should think about trying to solve.

As Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said, “We're not gonna fix it.” He suggested that the problem cannot be fixed, but at base he meant, “We’re not gonna try.” Burchett illustrated his view that mass shootings cannot be stopped with his daddy’s World War II story: “’Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out and doesn’t mind losing their life, then there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’” And apparently, we can’t expect anything different for third-graders than for soldiers in war.

Burchett had his own specific angle, but “We’re not gonna fix it”? That’s Republican doctrine.

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday March 29, 2023 · 6:00 AM PDT

2023/03/29 · 06:00

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 02: Two young girls walk up to the donation tables while a woman picks up food items during Food Bank for New York City's 5 Borough Pop-up sponsored by Grub Hub at Walter Weaver P.S. 398 on September 02, 2021 in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Food Bank For New York City) — Food banks will not be able to keep up with the need Republicans are hoping to create

Republicans are gearing up for a new round of attacks on food assistance, part of their nonstop search for ways to stigmatize poor people. Rep. Dusty Johnson has introduced a bill that would expand the age range of the able bodied adults without dependents who are already subject to work requirements to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. That’s just the beginning of the planned efforts to kick people off of food stamps—but it’s bad enough.

“We know that work is the only path out of poverty,” Johnson, a member of the party that has steadfastly refused to raise the minimum wage to be a path out of poverty, told Politico recently. Currently, full-time, year-round work at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour puts a person just a few hundred dollars above the poverty threshold for a single adult. That full-time, year-round work at the minimum wage is more than $4,000 below the poverty threshold for a single parent with one child.

So Republicans need to shut their mouths about work as a path out of poverty until they plan to do something about it. But, of course, they will not do that. The message trumps the reality, because in reality, this is not about encouraging work or building paths out of poverty. It will increase hunger and instability, though.

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday March 28, 2023 · 12:50 PM PDT

2023/03/28 · 12:50

Wisconsin has not one but two critically important elections on April 4—one deciding the balance of power on the state Supreme Court, and one deciding whether Republicans will have a supermajority in the state Senate. Those two races collided this week when Dan Knodl, the Republican state Senate nominee, said that if he’s elected he would support impeaching Judge Janet Protasiewicz, the progressive candidate for Supreme Court.

Knodl is clearly illustrating what’s at stake in his election: If he defeats Democratic candidate Jodi Habush Sinykin, Republicans will have the two-thirds majority needed to remove state officials impeached by the state assembly. That could mean not just Protasiewicz but any Democrat in state office, including Gov. Tony Evers.

Daily Kos has endorsed Judge Janet Protasiewicz and state Senate candidate Jodi Habush Sinykin. Can you chip in $5 to help win these critically important races?

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday March 28, 2023 · 11:35 AM PDT

2023/03/28 · 11:35

On Monday, a 28-year-old armed with two assault rifles and a handgun broke into a Nashville school and murdered three 9-year-old children and three adults, just the latest deadly school shooting in the United States of America. Republicans are offering a different response than their usual, because of one fact: The shooter is reportedly transgender.

The U.S. has school shooting after school shooting, and Republicans respond with thoughts and prayers and obstruction of meaningful gun laws. But let one shooter be trans, and it’s time for action—action against trans people.

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday March 28, 2023 · 9:50 AM PDT

2023/03/28 · 09:50

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 8: Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) waits to speak during a news conference after a budget briefing at the U.S. Capitol March 8, 2023 in Washington, DC. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Phillip L. Swagel briefed House members on the the agencys budget and economic outlook. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden has issued a budget plan. House Republicans have not. Yet Kevin McCarthy, he who took 15 votes to become speaker, thinks he’s going to pressure Biden to start negotiating on a debt limit increase despite his party’s failure to produce any solid proposal.

Biden is taking advantage of his advantage at a Tuesday visit to a North Carolina semiconductor manufacturer. The visit is to highlight the impact of the CHIPS Act, but Biden will more broadly make the point that investing in the U.S. economy—as he wants to do and Republicans do not—is a good thing. This is just one stop on what’s planned as a 20-state campaign with stops by Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Dr. Jill Biden, and top administration officials to highlight the effects of legislation like the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and more.

“MAGA House Republicans made it crystal clear that their budget would cut the wealthy a break by raising costs on health care or child care for families,” Biden tweeted. “My budget will lower costs for families while reducing the deficit $3 trillion over 10 years.”

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday March 28, 2023 · 7:30 AM PDT

2023/03/28 · 07:30

A group prays with a child outside the reunification center at the Woodmont Baptist church after a school shooting, Monday, March 27, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Three nine-year-olds and three adults were killed in a mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, a private Christian school, on Monday. In response, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan postponed a committee meeting on a plan to nullify a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives rule redefining pistols with stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles.

“Democrats were going to turn this tragic event into a political thing,” Jordan told The Hill.

Yes, heaven forbid Democrats point out, in a congressional committee, the relationship of the bill being marked up by the committee to a real-world event that claimed the lives of six people just the day before. That would be so unseemly.

Laura Clawson for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Monday March 27, 2023 · 12:20 PM PDT

2023/03/27 · 12:20

Children from The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., hold hands as they are taken to a reunification site at the Woodmont Baptist Church after a shooting at their school, on Monday March, 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Jonathan Mattise)

There’s a lot we don’t yet know about the shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, private Christian school that left three students and three teachers dead in addition to the shooter. But we know the most important things: This has to stop. This doesn’t happen in most countries. Too many people are dying to gun violence in general and mass shootings in particular in the United States of America and one of our major political parties is dedicated to keeping it that way.

In that vein, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee came out with the predictable thoughts and prayers sentiment. “I am closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant, & the @TNDeptofSafety & @TNHighwayPatrol are assisting local law enforcement & first responders at the scene,” he tweeted. “As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.”

No comment there on what it says about the utility of prayer as the one and only response to these situations that this is a Christian school. Fine, pray, but stop pretending that’s all you can do.

Oh, except Lee already has done something else, and Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts was right there to point it out:

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Biden pushes McCarthy to fulfill what he previously called 'our very first responsibility'

'Calm down? Children are dying!': Democrats and Republicans get into it over school shootings

Ron DeSantis wants to gut the defamation defense Fox News is using in Dominion lawsuit

Howard Schultz really didn't want to answer Bernie Sanders' questions about Starbucks' union-busting

Idaho Republicans invent a new crime: 'Abortion trafficking'

Republicans keep finding new ways to say guns are more important than children's lives

'Work is the only path out of poverty,' say the people keeping work from being a path out of poverty

Wisconsin Republican says he would support impeaching Judge Janet Protasiewicz

The Republican refusal to blame guns for mass shootings gets a new angle

Kevin McCarthy tries a bluff to disguise House GOP's lack of a budget or even debt limit demands

Jordan postpones committee markup to repeal pistol brace rule following Nashville school shooting

Tennessee governor who signed permitless carry law offers prayers after school shooting