A solid start for the Republicans in the 118th Congress.
New Rules Package Voted On And Passed
New House Judiciary Select Subcommittee On The Weaponization Of The Federal Government Voted On And Passed
Speaker McCarthy Promises To Release The 14k Hours Of Surveillance Footage From January 6th
None of this would have been possible if not for the courage of the 20 Republicans last week who held the line and extracted these concessions out of Kevin McCarthy before he could become Speaker.
There’s reason to be optimistic, but also a need to remain vigilant. We must not be content with symbolic victories.
Republicans must deliver.
(Note: Since these newsletters are long, Substack has indicated they may get cut off a bit when receiving them by email. If that happens, you can always access the full newsletter directly on Substack.)
In addition to Twitter, you can also follow us on Truth Social, Gettr, and Gab.
A Solid Start: Week 1 Of The 118th Congress
Republicans may have limped into a majority in the House with a very mediocre showing in the Midterms, but they have started off strong after the swearing in of the 118th Congress.
The New Rules Package
Thanks to negotiations made by the 20 House Republicans who blocked McCarthy from the Speakership for over a dozen ballots last week, we have a far more impressive rules package.
The House Rules Package was voted on and passed on Monday January 9th with a vote count of 220-213. The vote was party line with one exception, Texas Representative Tony Gonzales (R-Texas). Gonzales went on Face the Nation to explain why.
[T]his has a proposed billions of dollar cut to defense, which I think is a horrible idea. When you have aggressive Russia and Ukraine, you've got a growing threat of China in the Pacific, you know, I'm going to visit Taiwan here in a couple of weeks, how am I going to look at our allies in the eye and say, I need you to increase your defense budget, but yet America is going to decrease ours.
His reasons are beltway gibberish, but amounted to nothing as the package still passed. He didn’t even whip votes against it.
But there's a difference between voting against it and whipping other members to vote against it. I would say in this case, I'm not whipping other members to vote against it.
But I’m sure he still got a pat on the head from all his donors though.
Here are a few of the things included in the House Rules package:
It includes a single member motion to vacate the chair as well as a requirement that tax increases receive 60% support before becoming law. The rules also require that legislation have only one subject, and give members 72 hours to read bills. Republicans are also creating a new Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government under the House Judiciary Committee.
A few more:
The package also includes adoption of the so-called Holman rule, which allows lawmakers to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay.
The rules approved on Monday end proxy voting and remote committee hearings for lawmakers, after Democrats put the practices in place at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
If Lawerence “STOP THE HAMMERING” O’Donnell is freaking out about the new Rules Package, there’s reason to be optimistic.
Church Committee 2.0
Another important victory was the creation of a new “Church-Style” Committee to investigate the “Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
The resolution to create this new subcommittee was passed in a party line vote of 221-211 this week. This new subcommittee will be a part of the House Judiciary Committee and is expected to be headed up by Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Representative Jordan did an interview with the New York Post to discuss what he has planned.
Jordan is planning to open his marquee select committee probe with an avalanche of FBI whistleblowers. The original roster of 14 he boasted of in November has now ballooned into “dozens” of agents who have come forward to tell their stories.
Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas) has stated that the subcommittee will be well funded.
He said Mr. McCarthy had committed to giving the subcommittee at least as much funding and staffing as the House special committee in the last Congress that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“So we got more resources, more specificity, more power to go after this recalcitrant Biden administration,” Mr. Roy said. “That’s really important.”
Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) joined Tucker Carlson last week to discuss what he wants to see out of the committee.
Unleash hell, Representative Bishop!
How about it, Elon Musk?
Speaker McCarthy Promises To Release January 6th Security Footage
This would be huge if McCarthy follows through with it.
Releasing the January 6th footage and a new Church Committee were two of the recommendations made by Tucker Carlson to Kevin McCarthy during the Speaker’s race last week.
Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) confirmed this week that Speaker McCarthy has promised to release the tapes.
The great journalist Julie Kelly, who has been doing incredible work covering January 6th, wrote an excellent piece this week laying out why releasing the January 6th security footage is so important.
Julie Kelly: What The January 6 Videos Will Show
If McCarthy follows through on his promise, the world will see the biggest inside job—an actual coup—in U.S. history unfold before their eyes. Not only is it necessary to expose the truth of January 6 but to exonerate innocent Americans whose lives have been destroyed in the aftermath.
Roll the tapes.
Representative Gaetz combatting some of the ridiculous excuses for not releasing the footage.
McCarthy has made his promises, now it’s up to all of us to hold him to them.
This week was a very good start for the 118th Congress, let’s keep it going.
There’s much work to be done.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Columbia Bugle to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.