Another prominent House Republican from Georgia will retire, adding to the mass exodus Speaker Mike Johnson is seeing under his leadership.U
Another prominent House Republican from Georgia will retire, adding to the mass exodus Speaker Mike Johnson is seeing under his leadership.
U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) announced on Wednesday that he will not seek re-election. Loudermilk was first elected to Congress in 2014. He is the fourth Georgia Republican not seeking re-election, and joins (former) U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), and U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA).
Loudermilk become the thirtieth House Republican to retire or seek a different office, according to the U.S. House Casualty List.
Last week, Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman reported: “Today, we only see 18 out of 435 races as toss-ups, but Republicans would need to win two-thirds of the toss-up column to hold their House majority.”
Democrats decry creation of subcommittee as attempt to rewrite narrative and shift blame from Donald Trump
Maya Yang at The Guardian:
House Republicans have voted to establish a new subcommittee to reinvestigate the January 6 attack, a move that comes as Donald Trump has tried to rewrite the history of the most violent incident in US Capitol history.
Language to set up the Republican-led subcommittee was folded into a larger rule that passed along party lines. The new subcommittee follows Republican claims that the previous Democratic-led committee was biased against Trump.
The vote comes seven months after House speaker Mike Johnson first announced the new subcommittee in January, saying that it will “uncover the full truth that is owed to the American people”.
On his first day in office, Trump issued 1,500 “full, complete and unconditional” presidential pardons to people who were involved in the attack, including those who were convicted of violent acts.
The new Republican-led subcommittee will be chaired by Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, who will have full subpoena authority. When Loudermilk formally introduced the resolution to establish the subcommittee in July, Johnson said: “House Republicans remain intent on delivering the answers that House Democrats skipped over.”
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The new subcommittee will have eight members appointed by Johnson, and not more than three members appointed “in consultation” with the Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.
According to the resolution, the subcommittee is “authorized and directed to conduct a full and complete investigation and study and issue a final report of the events surrounding January 6 2021”. The formation of a new subcommittee has largely been decried by Democrats as a Republican-led attempt to exonerate Trump over his involvement on January 6 and rewrite the narrative of that day’s deadly attack.
The final report of the new subcommittee is expected to be submitted by 31 December 2026.
House Republicans give approval to the history revisionist Investigate the Remaining Questions Surrounding January 6th 2021 Select Subcommittee regarding the Capitol Insurrection.
They’re excusing the reckless behavior of COVID vaccine refusers.
From the August 13, 2021 opinion piece:
Faced with a right-wing audience that rejects science and behaves recklessly, conservative politicians have abandoned moral judgment. “Getting vaccinated is a personal choice,” says Johnson, and we should “respect each other’s medical decisions.” Blackburn agrees, arguing that if some people “don’t want the shot, it is their choice.” At the Faith and Freedom Conference, [Rep. Barry] Loudermilk rotated effortlessly from piety to anarchism. Seconds after criticizing same-sex marriage and the welfare “lifestyle,” he told liberals: “It’s none of your business if I’ve been vaccinated or not.” The crowd applauded wildly.
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This double standard—moral judgment of certain people, non-judgment of others—is more than rhetorical. Cruz, Scalise, Blackburn, Loudermilk, and many other lawmakers have repeatedly invoked morality as a basis to discriminate legally against gay people. They have voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Social Security and veterans benefits for same-sex couples, and prohibitions on antigay discrimination by youth programs and federal contractors. They use legislative power to enforce cultural disapproval—or to protect private enforcement of that disapproval—but only when their supporters are the ones who disapprove.
Cruz, in particular, is a transcendent hypocrite....
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In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers are circulating legislation that would pay unemployment benefits to vaccine refusers. Under state law, people who quit their jobs, or who are fired for “misconduct” or “substantial fault,” are ineligible to collect unemployment. The bill would restore eligibility to people whose reason for quitting or being fired was that they defied an employer’s requirement to get a COVID shot. Wisconsin severely restricts welfare for people who lose their jobs for other reasons. But the party that calls government assistance a “lifestyle” will pay you not to work if you’re a vaccine refuser.
