Tag: republicans

RINO Don Bacon Threatens to IMPEACH Trump Over Greenland – “I Think Republicans Need to be Firm”

RINO Congressman Don Bacon (R-NE) floated the idea of impeaching President Trump if he invades Greenland. 

“I would lean that way,” he said of supporting an impeachment over Greenland. “The off-ramp is realizing Republicans aren’t going to tolerate this and he’s going to have to back off. He hates being told no, but in this case, I think Republicans need to be firm.”

Bacon announced his retirement from Congress last July, and he’s eying impeachment as his final act.

Bacon also co-sponsored a bill with Democrats to curb Trump’s power and prevent a military invasion of Greenland, which Trump has not expressed plans for. Still, he has signaled that the option is on the table, likely for strategic purposes.

“I think it should be unnecessary,” Bacon told the Omaha World Herald while speaking about the legislation.

“It’s ridiculous that this has to even be done. But when the president talks about taking Greenland one way or the other way every day this last week or so and that it’s unacceptable if Greenland refuses to be part of the United States, I felt like I needed to make a statement that Republicans disagree,” the lone Republican sponsor of the bill added.

Trump has repeatedly said the island is needed for national security and to prevent Russia or China from taking over.

Trump told reporters at a news conference last month at Mar-a-Lago, while announcing a new Golden Fleet of battleships.

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Republican who said trans healthcare ‘harms’ kids gets lengthy sentence for child sex abuse imagery

A former South Carolina Republican lawmaker and member of the ultra-Conservative Freedom Caucus, who supported drag and trans healthcare bans “to protect childhood innocence”, has been handed a nearly two decade prison sentence for distributing vile child sexual abuse material.

Robert John May III, known as ‘RJ’ , 38, had represented the state’s 88th district in the House of Representatives since November 2020 but resigned from his seat in August 2025 after he was arrested and charged two months earlier with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children. In September, May subsequently pleaded guilty to the charges.

During his time in office May was outspoken against gender-affirming care, trans inclusion in sports and drag performances, and was listed as a speaker at Mom’s for Liberty’s Reclaiming Education in America event in 2022. Many of his concerns about LGBTQ+ topics were cited in regards to child safety.

On Wednesday (14 January), May was handed a 17.5 year sentence in federal prison by US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a term that was slightly less than the 20 years prosecutors requested but much longer than the five years the former lawmaker requested for himself.

Currie said May was given a higher sentence than the average for similar charges because the content he disseminated was the “most severe the court had seen”.

Following his release from prison, May will have to spend another 20 years under supervised release, with federal parole officers monitoring his actions to be sure he doesn’t reoffend. He was also ordered to pay $58,500 in restitution to eight victims who the authorities identified and will be required to register as a sex offender for life.

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GOP Senators Move to Block Trump Marijuana Reclassification

Republican Sens. Ted Budd of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma are moving to block the Trump administration’s effort to reclassify marijuana under federal law, arguing the move would undermine public safety and bypass Congress.

The two senators this week filed an amendment to a House-passed, three-bill funding package that would prevent the Justice Department from reclassifying marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

Marijuana has been listed as a Schedule I substance since the Controlled Substances Act was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, more than five decades ago.

Heroin, LSD, and ecstasy also are classified as Schedule I substances.

The Budd-Lankford amendment would bar the use of federal funds to reschedule marijuana, effectively stopping the Justice Department from carrying out the administration’s directive.

The proposal was formally entered into the Congressional Record this week as lawmakers prepare to debate the spending package in the Senate.

The language mirrors provisions that were recently removed from the appropriations bill during negotiations between House and Senate leaders.

While similar restrictions had advanced through the House Appropriations Committee, they were ultimately stripped from the final package, which passed the House Jan. 8 by a 397-28 vote.

Now, Budd and Lankford are seeking to reinsert the prohibition before the legislation clears the Senate.

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Senate GOP blocks vote to limit President Trump’s authority on Venezuela

Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to dismiss a war powers resolution that would have limited President Donald Trump’s ability to carry out further military action against Venezuela, with two GOP senators reversing their earlier support for the measure.

Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to defeat a Democratic-backed motion after the Senate split 50-50 on a Republican effort to dismiss the resolution.

The outcome followed five Republican senators who originally joined Democrats to advance the legislation last week. Two of those Republicans, Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, ultimately withdrew their support.

Democrats forced the debate after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.

“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” President Trump said Tuesday during a speech in Michigan.

President Trump also criticized several Republicans who maintained their support for the resolution, blasting Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Even if the resolution had passed the Senate, it stood little chance of becoming law because it would have required President Trump’s signature.

Lawmakers also cited the release of a heavily redacted 22-page Justice Department memo outlining the legal basis for the operation that captured Maduro. The memo states that the administration currently has no plans for expanded military action.

“We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war,” the memo said, signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser.

The administration has justified its actions by citing wartime authorities under the global war on terror, after designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations. It has also characterized Maduro’s capture as a law enforcement operation tied to longstanding U.S. criminal charges.

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“Congress Is BOUGHT AND PAID FOR!” — Rep. Tim Burchett ERUPTS After 17 “GUTLESS” GOP Members Join Democrats to Hand BILLIONS to Big Insurance Under Obamacare

During a fiery appearance on The Matt Gaetz Show, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) unleashed a blistering indictment of Washington corruption.

The latest betrayal comes as 17 “gutless” House Republicans crossed the aisle to join Democrats in a move that effectively hands billions of taxpayer dollars to massive insurance companies under the umbrella of Obamacare, a system Republicans have campaigned on repealing for over a decade.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 230 to 196 to extend expired Obamacare subsidies for three years.

17 defiant Republicans joined the Democrats and voted in favor of the three-year extension.

  • Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
  • Mike Lawler (R-NY)
  • Rob Bresnahan (R-PA)
  • Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA)
  • Mike Carey (R-OH)
  • Monica De La Cruz (R-TX)
  • Andrew Garbarino (R-NY)
  • Will Hurd (R-CO)
  • Dave Joyce (R-OH)
  • Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ)
  • Nick LaLota (R-NY)
  • Max Miller (R-OH)
  • Zach Nunn (R-IA)
  • Maria Salazar (R-FL)
  • Dave Valadao (R-CA)
  • Derrick Van Orden (R-WI)
  • Rob Wittman (R-VA)

Host Matt Gaetz pressed Burchett on why Congress can’t use reconciliation to cut spending and advance conservative priorities without begging Democrats for permission.

During the interview, Matt Gaetz questioned Burchett on the lack of progress regarding a reconciliation bill that would allow for massive spending cuts, including slashing funds currently flowing to the Taliban. Gaetz noted that while Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) has been pleading for action, the GOP leadership seems content to “beg” Democrat staffers for crumbs.

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How Marjorie Taylor Greene Went From QAnon Acolyte to MAGA Exile

Pundits have offered elaborate explanations for the evolving views of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican whose resignation from Congress takes effect today, but I don’t think you need a detailed theory to explain this woman’s journey from QAnon acolyte to MAGA exile. You just need to recognize one central fact about her: She actually believes things. Some of the things she’s believed are absurd, but that’s secondary. She has beliefs, and she’s willing—not always, but more often than the average D.C. pol—to put those beliefs ahead of other considerations.

You could already catch a hint of this during Greene’s original 2020 congressional campaign. Back then, she attracted national attention for her past interest in QAnon, a tapestry of conspiracy theories in which President Donald Trump was supposedly secretly working with special counsel Robert Mueller to defeat a cabal of elite satanic pedophiles who consume children’s blood. In those days, articles about Greene frequently linked her to another Q-friendly figure, the Colorado congressional candidate Lauren Boebert, who entered the House at the same time as Greene and eventually had a contentious falling out with her. (Greene was booted from the Freedom Caucus after she reportedly called Boebert a “little bitch.”) But even in 2020, anyone paying close attention could have seen an important difference between the two candidates. Greene had actually embraced the Q worldview (though she insisted that she had come to reject it). Boebert, asked about QAnon on the conspiracist show Steel Truth, had replied by saying she “hope[d] that this is real”—a statement delicately phrased to appeal to the Q-ish voting bloc without committing her to its worldview. Boebert was playing a cynical political game. Greene, for better or for worse, was a believer.

Not just a believer: a particular kind of believer. Most Americans don’t spend their lives soaking up the dogmas of the two big parties’ competing fan bases. To the extent that they pay attention to politics, they often adopt their views piecemeal, mixing opinions from the left and the right and, sometimes, from strange folks on the fringes. So you might be, say, an affluent woman in an Atlanta suburb, founder of a CrossFit gym, who rarely reads the op-ed pages of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal but scrolls frequently through Facebook, absorbing rumors that the typical Times or Journal reader might regard as nuts. That was Greene, part normie and part weird—weird, in fact, because she was so normal.

The most infamous idea Greene expressed in her pre-congressional days came in 2018, when she wrote a Facebook post blaming that year’s California wildfires on space lasers controlled by the Rothschild banking family. The Rothschilds play a starring role in many antisemitic conspiracy theories, so when Greene’s post resurfaced in 2021, many people concluded the congresswoman was not merely loopy but an antisemite. Greene responded that she simply hadn’t known that the Rothschilds are Jewish. Maybe she really didn’t know, or maybe that was a lie. But if any congressperson could plausibly claim such naivete, it would be Greene. This wasn’t the Rothschild tale of someone who grew up surrounded by anti-Jewish folklore; it was the Rothschild tale of someone surrounded by folklore that had fallen out of its original context and floated like driftwood in a digital sea.

Sometimes someone with that sort of background comes to Washington, gets acclimated, and drops those early influences like a striver carefully eliminating every trace of his hometown’s accent. But Greene didn’t. She kept believing things, and that led to trouble with her party.

Even during Donald Trump’s first stint in the White House, you could see a simmering tension between two types of MAGA—the kind that was basically just pro-Trump, and a wilder, woolier bundle of Trump-era currents on the populist right. (One way to tell the difference: Check whether someone’s skepticism about the national security state disappears when the three-letter agencies pursue people not named Trump.) Greene was, along with Florida’s Matt Gaetz, the most notable Republican from the second group to have made it to Congress. Their views did not always track with the party line, particularly when it came to foreign policy. Greene once joined Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a self-described socialist from Michigan, in signing a letter asking the government to drop the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and she did it the very same week she joined a Republican push to censure Tlaib for some comments about Israel.

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Vivek Ramaswamy’s bodyguard hit with federal drug trafficking charges over fentanyl and meth dealing allegations

Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s family bodyguard was arrested last week and hit with federal drug trafficking charges after authorities found pills containing fentanyl, methamphetamine and MDMA, as well as steroids, at the home he shared with his bodybuilder wife. 

Justin Salsburey, 43, and his wife, Ruthann Rankin, were taken into custody on Dec. 30, following the execution of a search warrant that allegedly discovered a trove of illegal drugs – some stashed in nicotine pouch containers – at the couple’s home, jail records and court documents show. 

Salsburey was employed by a private security firm contracted by Ramaswamy’s family to provide protective services, a campaign spokesperson told The Post, noting that the family was “alarmed to hear this disturbing news.” 

“Upon being informed of this matter in recent days, the outside security firm immediately removed the individual from the security detail,” Connie Luck, a spokesperson for the Republican gubernatorial candidate, said.  

“Prior to employment, the individual cleared multiple background checks conducted by the security company, as well as FBI and BCI background checks, most recently conducted by OSU Medical Center in September 2025,” Luck continued.

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The First Amendment Allows You to Report Things the Government Doesn’t Want Reported

The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed journalist Seth Harp (Washington Post, 1/8/26) over his posting on X a photo and publicly available biographical information about the US colonel who apparently leads the Army’s Delta Force unit, which played a key role in the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Committee member Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R–Fla.) called for Harp’s criminal prosecution, accusing him of “leaking classified information” and “doxing” the colonel. In a statement to the Washington Post, she said:

The First Amendment does not give anyone a license to expose elite military personnel, compromise operations or assist our adversaries under the guise of reporting.

Actually, the First Amendment does give you a license to do all of those things. None of them are covered by the extremely limited exceptions to the freedom of the press recognized by the US Constitution.

And allowing these is not the unfortunate consequence of unbridled free expression; these are liberties that are core to maintaining a semblance of democracy. Do you want to be ruled by secret military commanders? Do you want it to be illegal to report on your country’s use of military force? Do you want to live in a country where journalists are in prison for “assisting our adversaries”?

Unfortunately, though, the House Oversight Committee apparently does want all of those things.

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EXPOSED: House Republicans Quietly Slipped Pesticide “Immunity” Into Spending Bill — Now FORCED to Yank Section 453 After Massive Backlash

House Republicans quietly inserted, and then just as quietly removed, a highly controversial provision from the 2026 Interior and Environment spending bill after a firestorm of public outrage exposed what critics called a blatant attempt to shield powerful chemical corporations from accountability.

Section 453 of H.R. 4754 would have blocked federal funding for the EPA to update pesticide labels, guidance, or policy if those updates differed in any way from prior health assessments, even when new science emerged showing increased risks.

After intense pressure from watchdog groups and conservative commentators, House leadership yanked the provision before the bill heads to the floor this week.

The now-removed language stated:

“SEC. 453. None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to issue or adopt any guidance or any policy, take any regulatory action, or approve any labeling or change to such labeling that is inconsistent with or in any respect different from the conclusion of
(a) a human health assessment performed pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; or
(b) a carcinogenicity classification for a pesticide.”

In plain English: freeze pesticide labels in place, regardless of emerging science.

Critics warned this would allow manufacturers to argue in court that it was “impossible” to update warnings — effectively gutting failure-to-warn lawsuits and stripping families of legal recourse when harm occurs.

Children’s Health Defense led the charge, issuing an urgent warning that Section 453 would “wipe out your right to sue pesticide companies.”

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Tracking congressional criticism of Trump’s attack on Venezuela

On Saturday, the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and carried out airstrikes across Venezuela. We are keeping track of notable criticism of this attack from members of Congress.

Republicans

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)

“If this action were constitutionally sound, the Attorney General wouldn’t be tweeting that they’ve arrested the President of a sovereign country and his wife for possessing guns in violation of a 1934 U.S. firearm law.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)

“Mexican cartels are primarily and overwhelmingly responsible for killing Americans with deadly drugs.

If U.S. military action and regime change in Venezuela was really about saving American lives from deadly drugs then why hasn’t the Trump admin taken action against Mexican cartels?

And if prosecuting narco terrorists is a high priority then why did President Trump pardon the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez who was convicted and sentenced for 45 years for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into America? Ironically cocaine is the same drug that Venezuela primarily traffics into the U.S. […]

Regime change, funding foreign wars, and American’s tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes, foreigners both home and abroad, and foreign governments while Americans are consistently facing increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare, and learn about scams and fraud of their tax dollars is what has most Americans enraged. Especially the younger generations. Boomers and half of Gen X will cheer on neocon wars and talking points, but the other half of Gen X and majority on down see through it and hate it. […]

This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end.

Boy were we wrong.”

Democrats

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)

“The administration has assured me three separate times that it was not pursuing regime change or taking military action in Venezuela. Clearly, they are not being straight with Americans.

The idea that Trump plans to now run Venezuela should strike fear in the hearts of all Americans. The American people have seen this before and paid the devastating price.

The administration must brief Congress immediately on its objectives, and its plan to prevent a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster that plunges us into another endless war or one that trades one corrupt dictator for another.”

Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.)

“Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress. Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.

This strike doesn’t represent strength. It’s not sound foreign policy. It puts Americans at risk in Venezuela and the region, and it sends a horrible and disturbing signal to other powerful leaders across the globe that targeting a head of state is an acceptable policy for the U.S. government. This will further damage our reputation – already hurt by Trump’s policies around the world – and only isolate us in a time when we need our friends and allies more than ever.”

“Americans across the political spectrum must reject Trump’s plan for the U.S. to ‘run the country’ of Venezuela.

This is a disastrous plan. We have seen this show before and it did not end well.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

“Trump’s attack on Venezuela will make the United States and the world less safe. This brazen violation of international law gives a green light to any nation on earth that may wish to attack another country to seize their resources or change their governments. This is the horrific logic of force that Putin used to justify his brutal attack on Ukraine.

Trump and his administration have often said they want to revive the Monroe Doctrine, claiming the United States has the right to dominate the affairs of the hemisphere. They have spoken openly about controlling Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world. This is rank imperialism. It recalls the darkest chapters of U.S. interventions in Latin America, which have left a terrible legacy. It will and should be condemned by the democratic world.

Trump campaigned for president on an “America First” platform. He claimed to be the “peace candidate.” At a time when 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, when our healthcare system is collapsing, when people cannot afford housing and when AI threatens millions of jobs, it is time for the president to focus on the crises facing this country and end this military adventurism abroad. Trump is failing in his job to “run” the United States. He should not be trying to “run” Venezuela.”

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