Tag: Do-Nothing Congress

What Federal Employee Marjorie Taylor Greene Did Last Week

Pensito Editors

Pensito Illustration
President Elon Musk sent out a not-human-resources-approved email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees last week:

“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk wrote on X, which he owns. The post ends: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Federal employee Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) provided the following bullet points to DOGE:

Dear Leader Musk, in the past week, acting in my capacity as a federal employee:

  • I trashed federal workers at a congressional hearing, stating that none of them “deserve” paychecks. I quote myself: “The bureaucracy is not a business. Those are not real jobs producing federal revenue. By the way, they’re consuming taxpayer dollars. Those jobs are paid for by the American tax people who work real jobs, earn real income, pay federal taxes, and then pay these federal employees. Federal employees do not deserve their jobs. Federal employees do not deserve their paychecks.”
  • I came under fire by my congressional colleagues after it emerged I purchased between $4,000 and $60,000 worth of Tesla stock on January 8 after I was selected to chair the House Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee.
  • I defended President Trump after my Democratic colleague Rep. Melanie Stansbury referred to Donald Trump as a “king” Wednesday. Stansbury said, “Let me say this to you, Mr. Trump. Two hundred fifty years ago, the people of this great nation rejected a reckless, abusive king, and we won’t go back.” So I said, after recognizing myself for closing remarks, “Threats against the president of the United States will not be tolerated by anyone.”
  • I helpfully showed the Congressional calendar to constituents on X: “This is our House calendar for 2025. Yellow is our in session weeks. Thought it would be good to share for anyone planning trips to visit your Representative.” Of course, people took it the wrong way: “So you rake in $174K a year, get top-tier healthcare, and play the stock market with insider tips, all for working eight days a month? Not bad. Maybe if you lived on minimum wage for a year, you’d finally get why folks are drowning while you all cash in.”
  • I did not update the calendar on my congressional website, which shows the last entry as a Town Hall in Dade County, Georgia, October 3, 2024, at 6 p.m.

Before Politics Turned Into Entertainment

Buck Banks

“Creating a false reality to trick voters is central to undermining democracy, and it is no secret that autocratic states like Russia, Iran, and China are spreading disinformation in the U.S. But I have always wondered what would happen when the American people finally pushed back against suggestions and innuendo and instead demanded actual evidence and policies designed to address problems, as they did before American politics turned into entertainment.”

— Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

Biden: Only Congress Can Address Gun Violence Now

Buck Banks

“I have gone the full extent of my executive authority, to do on my own anything about guns. The Congress has to act. The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, a crazy idea. They’re against that.”

— “President Biden said that he’s exhausted what he can do through executive action on gun control as he called on Congress to act following the nation’s latest mass shooting,” USA Today reports.

Why Republicans Don’t Need to Govern

Buck Banks

You can’t simply assert, like it’s some sort of natural fact, that Republicans ‘must show they can govern’ when an alternative course is available. Not only is it not a secret — this other direction — but it’s being strongly urged upon the party by people who are a key part of its coalition. … The alternative to ‘show you can govern’ is to keep President Obama from governing. Right? Keep him from accomplishing what he wants to get done in his final two years and then ‘go to the country,’ as Karl Rove used to say, with a simple message: time for a change! This is not only a valid way to proceed, it’s a pretty likely outcome.

— Jay Rosen, on his PressThink blog.

Is Congress Abdicating Its War Powers to Obama?

Buck Banks

“There’s one power Congress has that it doesn’t want: The power to declare war. And that’s certainly so seven weeks before congressional elections.

— Bloomberg reports. “The House will vote today on an amendment that gives the administration the authority to train and equip Syrian rebels as part of President Barack Obama’s strategy for destroying Islamic State. But it is silent on whether the president can deploy U.S. forces in the region. Some say Congress is setting a dangerous precedent by abdicating its war powers.”