RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/01/13/mitch-mcconnell-not-ruling-out-convicting-trump-n2583101

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is no longer going to be the Senate Majority leader. He’s furious with Trump. He thinks he cost the GOP the majority and is pleased with the Democrats’ push to remove President Donald Trump. It’s a big endorsement from the GOP side of the aisle for sure. Unlike the impeachment push that was launched based on the Russian collusion myth, McConnell doesn’t see this current push as a partisan exercise. Apparently, how he will vote is still up in the air, which means as of now, he hasn’t definitively ruled out convicting the president (via Fox News):

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republican colleagues Wednesday that he has “not made a final decision” on how he will vote on impeachment, despite signaling that he supported House Democrats’ move to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

“While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” McConnell told Senate Republicans.

McConnell’s comment comes after sources told Fox News that McConnell is “done” and “furious” with the president, and as the House considered an article of impeachment against Trump, saying he incited “insurrection” ahead of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. 

One source told Fox News on Tuesday that McConnell does not see House Democrats’ efforts to impeach Trump as a partisan exercise like the previous impeachment effort in 2019.

Another source told Fox News that McConnell told associates that impeachment will help rid the Republican Party of Trump and his movement.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/01/13/the-morning-briefing-squish-republican-turncoats-are-more-vile-than-democrats-n1334062

One of the unfortunate by-products of being on the side of the political aisle that isn’t a hive mind is that one often finds oneself at odds with members of one’s own party. That’s something the Democrats rarely have to deal with. Yeah, they have their little spats, but they play nice when it counts. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Squad have enjoyed giving Nancy Pelosi grief since they got into office, but they all voted for her re-election as Speaker.

It’s that way with legislation too. When the Democrats need the votes, the majority of the time they’ll bury a hatchet or two and do what’s needed.

Republicans aren’t like that, and a lot of that has to do with — you guessed it — the media. Democrats get love from the media no matter what they do. Not so much with the Republicans, of course. The weaker among us are tempted by occasional flashes of attention from the media. There’s a formula to getting the attention: all they have to do is side with the Democrats.

The Republicans who like to go begging for favor from the mainstream media will always tell you that they’re driven by conscience and deep principles.

That, my friends, is a trainload of hooey.

They’re pathetic emotional midgets who are desperate for attention. If they became full-time Democrats, they’d just be one in a big crowd. If they remain Republican, they’ve got an easy, albeit brief, attention fix. Whenever their fellow Republicans need them, all they have to do is slip a shiv in their backs and they get a pure hit of New York Times love for a few days.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-1-12-its-time-to-get-to-know-joe-

For the past four years, the Republicans have held voting control of the U.S. Senate, but by very narrow margins. Since 2017, the Republicans have had either 51, 52 or 53 seats, out of 100, at various times. That has meant that on any given vote, a handful of Republican defectors would be sufficient to sink whatever initiative was on the table. And thus a very small group of independent-minded Republican Senators — most prominently, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, and (until his death in 2018) John McCain of Arizona — held the keys to any Republican plans to get legislation enacted or government officers confirmed.

As a prime example, who can forget the Hamlet act of Senator Collins in the run-up to the Kavanaugh confirmation?

Now, the Senate is going to be split right down the middle, 50/50, with Vice President Kamala Harris having the ability to break a tie when everyone shows up and the vote goes along party lines. Suddenly, the question of whether there might be a couple of potential defectors on the Democratic side — or maybe even just one — becomes significant.

The situation of an even split in the Senate, with the VP breaking the tie, has occurred a few times in U.S. history. For example, one such time was during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, when the tie-breaking VP was Richard Nixon. Most recently there was a 50/50 Senate split in 2001, after the very close 2000 presidential election. VP Dick Cheney had the swing vote; but that only lasted for a few months. In May 2001 a Republican Senator from Vermont named Jim Jeffords decided to switch parties and become an “independent,” however “caucusing” with the Democrats. That act immediately swung the balance of power in the Senate to the Democrats.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/11/an-open-letter-to-sen-joe-manchin-its-time-to-change-parties/

Last week’s Senate runoff elections in Georgia gave the Democrats full control of the federal governing apparatus. America is now a one-party state, and the Californication of the country will soon begin. But there’s one man who can slow it down if not stop it, at least for a while: Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

The West Virginian could erase the Democrats’ de facto Senate majority (the Democratic vice president is the tie-breaker in the 50-50 chamber) simply by changing parties. This is no radical suggestion. Manchin is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, if not all of Washington, and the possibility of him flipping parties has come up before. But he remains a Democrat, and as recently as last week said he had no intention to switch.

However, we would like to make a formal pitch, inviting him to follow an honorable path taken by others. Here is our open letter to the senator.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/07/rashida-tlaibs-new-capitol-hill-office-neighbor-to-fly-israeli-flag/

Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D., Mich.) new office neighbor plans to fly an Israeli flag as a statement against Tlaib’s anti-Israel stance, The Washington Free Beacon reports.

The newly sworn-in Republican Congresswoman Rep. Kat Cammack from Florida vowed on Tuesday to place an Israeli flag outside her Capitol Hill office, which is right next door to that of Rashida Tlaib, a renowned critic of Israel with a history of anti-Semitic comments.

“[Tlaib] has some very strong opinions about Israel, and I have some very strong opinions about Israel, so I have made a pledge that I’m going to be planting the flag of Israel outside my door right next to the American flag,” Cammack told a Gainesville, Fla., ABC affiliate. “I think it’ll be very helpful as she walks past it every day.”

Carmack will be using an Israeli flag sent to her by Gators for Israel, an AIPAC-trained campus group at the University of Florida.

“Cammack became the representative for Florida’s Third Congressional District following the retirement of her former boss, Rep. Ted Yoho (R., Fla.), for whom she served for six years as deputy chief of staff. Cammack’s support for Israel and Israeli sovereignty was a major plank of her campaign platform,” according to Free Beacon.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pelosi-rules-11609792916?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Georgia voters, you can’t say Nancy Pelosi hasn’t warned you. The Speaker of the House is clarifying today that without a Republican Senate to serve as a check on her chamber, the 117th Congress is prepared to follow the fiscal blowout of 2020 with another historic surge in federal spending and debt. New House rules will eliminate one of the few modest institutional restraints on government budgets and further reduce the power of minority Republicans to impede the Pelosi agenda.

For anyone who’s been wondering whether the loss of Democratic House seats in November’s elections might encourage the Speaker to run a less partisan and less ideological House, you have your answer. Mrs. Pelosi has now endorsed a budgeting rule championed by radical Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.). The basic idea is to make every liberal priority eligible for “emergency” spending and remove it from any debate about government priorities.

Not that the rules enacted to this point by Speaker Pelosi and her predecessors have offered much resistance to the fleecing of taxpayers. The pile of publicly held U.S. Treasury debt is now larger than our entire economy and Washington’s unfunded entitlement promises are many times larger than that.

But when Mrs. Pelosi reclaimed the speaker’s gavel in 2019, she felt the need to maintain at least the appearance of being concerned about reckless federal borrowing. Amid a flourish of pronouncements about transparency and government reform, two years ago the Speaker angered Rep. Ocasio-Cortez with the re-imposition of a House rule purporting to require that new spending be offset by budget savings elsewhere.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/01/03/oh-well-nancy-pelosi-reelected-as-speaker-n1301342

Nancy Pelosi secured another term as Speaker of the House of Sunday. This will be the fourth (albeit nonconsecutive) term for the controversial San Francisco Democrat.

“As we go into session today, I do so full of pride to be nominated by our Democratic Caucus to be Speaker of the House,” Pelosi said in a letter released prior to the vote. “I am enormously grateful for the trust that Members have placed in me. I am confident that the Speaker’s election today will show a united Democratic Caucus ready to meet the challenges ahead, and that we are prepared to set our country on a new course, starting with the Electoral College meeting on Wednesday.”

Some had suggested that a surprise upset by a Republican could have happened.

While House members could vote by proxy due to emergency rules adopted in May to protect members from getting and spreading COVID-19, those rules expired with the new Congress. Since new rules governing the 117th Congress happen after the vote for speaker, members were required to be physically present to vote for speaker