#Congressman Comer's Office

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Bill Barr: The GOP's master 'fixer' for decades exposed

Thom Hartmann

April 17, 2024 3:53AM ET

Congressman Jim Jordan wanted revenge on behalf of Donald Trump against Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for charging Trump with election interference in Manhattan.

He threatened Bragg with “oversight”: dragging him before his committee, threatening him with contempt of Congress; putting a rightwing target on Bragg’s back by publicizing him to draw sharpshooters from as far away as Wyoming or Idaho; and facing the possibility of going to jail if he didn’t answer Jordan’s questions right. Jordan, James Comer, and Bryan Steil — three chairmen of three different committees — wrote to Bragg:

“By July 2019 ... federal prosecutors determined that no additional people would be charged alongside [Michael] Cohen. ... [Y]our apparent decision to pursue criminal charges where federal authorities declined to do so requires oversight....”

They were furious that Bragg would prosecute Trump for a crime that the federal Department of Justice had already decided in 2019 and announced that they weren’t going to pursue.

But why didn’t Bill Barr’s Department of Justice proceed after they’d already put Michael Cohen in prison for a year for delivering the check to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet at least until after the election, and then lying about it? Why didn’t they go after the guy who ordered the check written, the guy who’d had sex with Daniels, the guy whose run for the presidency was hanging in the balance?

Why didn’t the Department of Justice at least investigate (they have a policy against prosecuting a sitting president) the then-president’s role in the crime they put Cohen in prison for but was directed by, paid for, and also committed by Donald Trump?

Turns out, Geoffrey Berman — the lifelong Republican and U.S. Attorney appointed by Trump to run the prosecutor’s office at the Southern District of New York — wrote a book, Holding the Line, published in September, 2022, about his experiences during that era.

In it, he came right out and accused his boss Bill Barr of killing the federal investigation into Trump’s role of directing and covering up that conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. Had Barr not done that, Trump could have been prosecuted in January of 2021, right after he left office. And Jim Jordan couldn’t complain that Alvin Bragg was pushing a case the feds had decided wasn’t worth it.

As The Washington Post noted when the book came out:

“He [Berman] says Barr stifled campaign finance investigations emanating from the Cohen case and even floated seeking a reversal of Cohen’s conviction — just like Barr would later do with another Trump ally, Michael Flynn. (Barr also intervened in the case of another Trump ally, Roger Stone, to seek a lighter sentence than career prosecutors wanted.)”

Which is why Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg had to pick up the case, if the crime was to be exposed and prosecuted.

After all, this crime literally turned the 2016 election to Trump. Without it, polling shows and political scientists argue, Hillary Clinton would have been our president for at least four years and Trump would have retired into real estate obscurity.

But Bill Barr put an end to Berman’s investigation, according to Berman. The DOJ pretended to be investigating Trump for another few months, then quietly announced they weren’t going to continue the investigation. The news media responded with a shrug of the shoulders and America forgot that Trump had been at the center of Cohen’s crime.

In 2023, the New York Times picked up Bill Barr’s cover story and ran with it, ignoring Berman’s claims, even though he was the guy in charge of the Southern District of New York. The article essentially reported that Main Justice wouldn’t prosecute because Cohen wouldn’t testify to earlier crimes, Trump might’ve been ignorant of the law, and that the decision was made by prosecutors in New York and not by Barr.

Incomplete testimony and ignorance of the law have rarely stopped prosecutors in the past from a clear case like this one appears to be (Trump signed the check and Cohen had a recording of their conversation, after all), but the story stuck and the Times ran with it.

In contrast, Berman wrote:

“While Cohen had pleaded guilty, our office continued to pursue investigations related to other possible campaign finance violations [including by Trump]. When Barr took over in February 2019, he not only tried to kill the ongoing investigations but—incredibly—suggested that Cohen’s conviction on campaign finance charges be reversed. Barr summoned Rob Khuzami in late February to challenge the basis of Cohen’s plea as well as the reasoning behind pursuing similar campaign finance charges against other individuals [including Trump]. … “The directive Barr gave Khuzami, which was amplified that same day by a follow-up call from O’Callaghan, was explicit: not a single investigative step could be taken, not a single document in our possession could be reviewed, until the issue was resolved. … “About six weeks later, Khuzami returned to DC for another meeting about Cohen. He was accompanied by Audrey Strauss, Russ Capone, and Edward “Ted” Diskant, Capone’s co-chief. Barr was in the room, along with Steven Engel, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and others from Main Justice.”

Summarizing the story, Berman wondered out loud exactly why Bill Barr had sabotaged extending their investigation that could lead to an indictment of Trump when he left office:

“But Barr’s posture here raises obvious questions. Did he think dropping the campaign finance charges would bolster Trump’s defense against impeachment charges? Was he trying to ensure that no other Trump associates or employees would be charged with making hush-money payments and perhaps flip on the president? Was the goal to ensure that the president could not be charged after leaving office? Or was it part of an effort to undo the entire series of investigations and prosecutions over the past two years of those in the president’s orbit (Cohen, Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn)?”

In retrospect, the answer appears to be, “All of the above.”

And that wasn’t Barr’s only time subverting justice while heading the Justice Department. Berman says he also ordered John Kerry investigated for possible prosecution for violating the Logan Act (like Trump is doing now!) by engaging in foreign policy when not in office.

Barr even killed a federal investigation into Turkish bankers, after Turkish dictator Erdoğan complained to Trump.

Most people know that when the Mueller investigation was completed — documenting ten prosecutable cases of Donald Trump personally engaging in criminal obstruction of justice and witness tampering to prevent the Mueller Report investigators from getting to the bottom of his 2016 connections to Russia — Barr buried the report for weeks.

He lied about it to America and our news media for almost a full month, and then released a version so redacted it’s nearly meaningless. (Merrick Garland, Barr’s heir to the AG job, is still hiding large parts of the report from the American people, another reason President Biden should replace him.)

While shocking in its corruption, as I noted here last month, this was not Bill Barr‘s first time playing cover-up for a Republican president who’d committed crimes that could rise to the level of treason against America.

He’s the exemplar of the “old GOP” that helped Nixon cut a deal with South Vietnam to prolong the War so he could beat Humphrey in 1968; worked with Reagan in 1980 to sell weapons to Iran in exchange for holding the hostages to screw Jimmy Carter; and stole the 2000 election from Al Gore by purging 94,000 Black people from the voter rolls in Jeb Bush’s Florida.

Instead of today’s “new GOP,” exemplified by Nazi marches, alleged perverts like Matt Gaetz, and racist rhetoric against immigrants, Barr’s “old GOP” committed their crimes wearing $2000 tailored suits and manipulating the law to their advantage…and still are.

For example, back in 1992, the first time Bill Barr was U.S. Attorney General, iconic New York Times writer William Safire referred to him as “Coverup-General Barr” because of his role in burying evidence of then-President George H.W. Bush’s involvement in Reagan’s scheme to steal the 1980 election through what the media euphemistically called “Iron-Contra.”

On Christmas day of 1992, the New York Times featured a screaming all-caps headline across the top of its front page: Attorney General Bill Barr had covered up evidence of crimes by Reagan and Bush in the Iran-Contra “scandal.” (see the bottom of this article)

Earlier that week of Christmas, 1992, George H.W. Bush was on his way out of office. Bill Clinton had won the White House the month before, and in a few weeks would be sworn in as president.

But Bush Senior’s biggest concern wasn’t that he’d have to leave the White House to retire back to one of his million-dollar mansions in Connecticut, Maine, or Texas: instead, he was worried that he may face time in a federal prison after he left office, a concern nearly identical to what Richard Nixon faced when he decided to resign to avoid prosecution.

Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh was closing in fast on Bush and Reagan, and Bush’s private records, subpoenaed by the independent counsel’s office, were the key to it all.

Walsh had been appointed independent counsel in 1986 to investigate the Iran-Contra activities of the Reagan administration and determine if crimes had been committed.

Was the criminal Iran-Contra conspiracy limited, as Reagan and Bush insisted (and Reagan said on TV), to later years in the Reagan presidency, in response to an obscure hostage-taking in Lebanon?

Or had it started in the 1980 presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter with treasonous collusion with the Iranians, as the then-president of Iran asserted? Who knew what, and when? And what was George H.W. Bush’s role in it all?

In the years since then, the President of Iran in 1980, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, has gone on the record saying that the Reagan campaign reached out to Iran to hold the hostages in exchange for weapons.

“Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan,” President Bani-Sadr told the Christian Science Monitor in 2013, “had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the ‘October Surprise,’ which prevented the attempts by myself and then-US President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 US presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.”

That wouldn’t have been just an impeachable and imprisonable crime: it was every bit as much treason as when Richard Nixon blew up LBJ’s 1968 peace talks with North and South Vietnam to win that November’s election against Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Walsh had zeroed in on documents that were in the possession of Reagan’s former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, who all the evidence showed was definitely in on the deal, and President Bush’s diary that could corroborate it.

Elliott Abrams had already been convicted of withholding evidence about it from Congress, and he may have even more information, too, if it could be pried out of him before he went to prison. But Abrams was keeping mum, apparently anticipating a pardon.

This was the moment the “old GOP” was at the height of its power and prestige, and Bush and Barr weren’t about to let it be exposed for the criminal enterprise that the “party of Lincoln” had become.

Weinberger, trying to avoid jail himself, was preparing to testify that Bush knew about the deal to hold the hostages and even participated in it, and Walsh had already, based on information he’d obtained from the investigation into Weinberger, demanded that Bush turn over his diary from the campaign. He was also again hot on the trail of Abrams.

So Bush called in his attorney general, Bill Barr — the respectable scion of the “old GOP” — and asked his advice.

At that point Barr, along with Bush, was already up to his eyeballs in cover-ups of other shady behavior by the Reagan administration.

Safire had started referring to Barr as “Coverup-General” in the midst of another scandal — Bush illegally selling weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein — because the Attorney General was already covering up for Bush, Weinberger, and others in the Reagan administration with a scandal the newspapers called “Iraqgate.”

Ironically, that illegal sale of weapons to Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s and early 1990s was cited by George W. Bush, Bush’s son, as part of his justification for illegally invading Iraq in 2003.

On October 19, 1992, Safire wrote in The New York Times of Barr’s unwillingness to appoint an independent counsel to look into Iraqgate:

“Why does the Coverup-General resist independent investigation? Because he knows where it may lead: to Dick Thornburgh, James Baker, Clayton Yeutter, Brent Scowcroft and himself [the people who organized the sale of WMD to Saddam]. He vainly hopes to be able to head it off, or at least be able to use the threat of firing to negotiate a deal.”

Now, just short of two months later, Bush was asking Barr for advice on how to avoid another very serious charge in the Iran-Contra crimes they committed to defeat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. How, he wanted to know, could they shut down Walsh’s investigation before Walsh’s lawyers got their hands on Bush’s diary?

In April of 2001, safely distant from the swirl of D.C. politics, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center was compiling oral presidential histories, and interviewed Barr about his time as AG in the Bush White House. They brought up the issue of the Weinberger pardon, which put an end to the Iran-Contra investigation, and Barr’s involvement in it.

Turns out, Barr was right in the middle of it.

“There were some people arguing just for [a pardon for] Weinberger, and I said, ‘No, in for a penny, in for a pound,’” Barr told the interviewer. “I went over and told the President I thought he should not only pardon Caspar Weinberger, but while he was at it, he should pardon about five others.”

Which is exactly what Bush did, on Christmas Eve when most Americans were with family instead of watching the news. The holiday notwithstanding, the result was explosive.

America knew that both Reagan and Bush were up to their necks in the Iran-Contra hostages-for-weapons scandal, and Democrats had been talking about treason, impeachment, or worse.

The independent counsel had already obtained one conviction, three guilty pleas, and two other individuals were lined up for prosecution in the case that lost Jimmy Carter the White House. And Walsh was closing in fast on Bush himself.

The second paragraph of the Times story by David Johnston laid it out:

“Mr. Weinberger was scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 5 on charges that he lied to Congress about his knowledge of the arms sales to Iran and efforts by other countries to help underwrite the Nicaraguan rebels, a case that was expected to focus on Mr. Weinberger’s private notes that contain references to Mr. Bush’s endorsement of the secret shipments to Iran.” (emphasis added)

History shows that when a Republican president is in serious legal trouble, the “old GOP’s” go-to guy was Bill Barr.

For William Safire, Iran-Contra was déjà vu all over again. Four months earlier, referring to Iraqgate (Bush’s criminally selling WMDs to Iraq), Safire opened his article, titled “Justice [Department] Corrupts Justice,” by writing:

“U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in rejecting the House Judiciary Committee’s call for a prosecutor not beholden to the Bush Administration to investigate the crimes of Iraqgate, has taken personal charge of the cover-up.”

Safire accused Barr of not only rigging the cover-up, but of being one of the criminals who could be prosecuted.

“Mr. Barr,” wrote Safire in The New York Times in August of 1992, “...could face prosecution if it turns out that high Bush officials knew about Saddam Hussein’s perversion of our Agriculture export guarantees to finance his war machine.”

He added:

“They [Barr and colleagues] have a keen personal and political interest in seeing to it that the Department of Justice stays in safe, controllable Republican hands.”

Earlier in Bush’s administration, Barr had succeeded in blocking the appointment of an investigator or independent counsel to look into Iraqgate, as Safire repeatedly documented in the Times.

In December, Barr helped Bush block indictments from another independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, and eliminated any risk that Reagan or George H.W. Bush would be held to account for Iran-Contra.

Walsh, wrote Johnston for the Times on Christmas Eve, “plans to review a campaign diary kept by Mr. Bush.” The diary would be the smoking gun that would nail Bush to the scandal.

“But,” noted the Times, “in a single stroke, Mr. Bush [at Barr’s suggestion] swept away one conviction, three guilty pleas and two pending cases, virtually decapitating what was left of Mr. Walsh’s effort, which began in 1986.”

And Walsh didn’t take it lying down. The Times report noted that:

“Mr. Walsh bitterly condemned the President’s action, charging that ‘the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.’”

Independent Counsel Walsh added that the diary and notes he wanted to enter into a public trial of Weinberger represented:

“{E]vidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public.”

The phrase “highest ranking” officials almost certainly included Reagan, Bush, and Barr himself.

Walsh had been fighting to get those documents ever since 1986, when he was appointed and Reagan still had two years left in office. Bush’s and Weinberger’s refusal to turn them over, Johnston noted in the Times, could have, in Walsh’s words:

“[F]orestalled impeachment proceedings against President Reagan” through a pattern of “deception and obstruction.”

Back in the 1990s, Barr successfully covered up the involvement of two Republican presidents — Reagan and Bush — in two separate and impeachable “high crimes,” one of them almost certainly treason committed just to win a presidential election.

And now we learn he apparently went so far as to cover up Trump’s involvement with Russia (the Mueller Report), and his scheme to fix the 2016 election by shutting up Stormy Daniels, Karen MacDougal, and the Trump Tower doorman.

And Barr’s apparently still at it! Just last month, The New York Times revealed how Barr apparently inserted himself into a Justice Department criminal investigation of a billion-dollar corporation for allegedly corruptly hiding their income offshore to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Republicans claim to be the party of law and order. What a pathetic joke.

#long-ass post #long post #history #learn somethin'

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Opinion | The House GOP’s sham hearings are fizzling before they even begin

BY JENNIFER RUBIN

The GOP’s conspiracy theories and unhinged accusations work best when Republicans are in the minority, when they can throw out half-baked accusations and make leaps of logic with little consequence.

When they are in the majority, however, they must show their cards about supposed Democratic scandals. And that is already proving to be a problem for right-wing performance politicians for four reasons.

First, most voters don’t want lawmakers to spend time spinning scandals. A recent CNN poll found that 67% of voters (including 74% of independents) don’t like the way Republicans are handling their job. 73% (including 48% of Republicans and 76% of independents) say Republicans aren’t paying enough attention to the country’s real issues. Likewise, a CBS poll earlier this month found that less than one-third of Americans want Republicans to spend time investigating President Biden. Every hearing that Republicans devote to distractions highlights their failure to tackle real issues.

Second, it is hard for Republicans to explain to an audience not already steeped in right-wing conspiracy theories what the heck they are talking about. At least the Benghazi matter and the bollixed Fast and Furious program were events worthy of oversight. The cockamamie Hunter Biden “scandal,” by contrast, is a mix of convoluted, illogical accusations, as former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa explains in a Substack post.

In an actual hearing, unlike an interview with a captive right-wing media host, one has to explain the alleged scandal in a way that is comprehensible to those who haven’t spent hours soaking up bogus talking points. Democratic committee members will be able to channel what average voters are thinking: “What in the world are you talking about?”

Third, Republicans have a problem with evidence — or the lack thereof. The administration has already told Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the Oversight Committee, that it would not provide documents from the ongoing investigation of classified materials found at Biden’s home and office. Likewise, the Justice Department told Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is leading the House Judiciary Committee, that it would follow long-standing practice and not turn over information about ongoing criminal probes. So what now?

Republicans can grouse all they like and even send subpoenas, but they will have difficulty getting their slim House majority to find any Biden official in contempt of Congress. Beyond holding a hearing complaining about not being allowed to muck around in pending criminal cases, there is not much Republicans can do.

Moreover, in a revealing interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Jordan couldn’t exactly explain how Democrats have “weaponized” the federal government. Consider this exchange about Jordan’s claim that the FBI has “targeted” parents:

NBC News host Chuck Todd: Well, I want to unpack a little bit. You talk about the FBI abusing powers when it comes to parents and school boards. School board members were getting death threats. These weren’t idle things. These weren’t parents just yelling and screaming. These were actual —

Jordan: Do you know how many parents —

Todd: — death threats to elected officials. And the FBI got a tip. Should they not look into a death threat when an elected official gets a death threat?

Jordan: School board writes a letter on September 29th, five days later, the Attorney General of the United States issues a memorandum to 101 U.S. attorneys offices around the country saying, “Set up this line that they can report on.” Sixteen days later, Chuck, the FBI sends out an email to agents all across the country saying, “Put this designation on parents. Report it on the snitch line that the attorney general set up.” So all that happens. Think about it, Sept. 29, Oct. 4, Oct. 20. That all happens in 22 days. When have you ever seen the federal government move that fast?

Todd: There were actual death threats. Congressman, literally —

Jordan: I understand.

Todd: — this is —

Jordan: Chuck, but let me just finish this. Twenty-five parents get reported on that snitch line. They all get investigated. FBI shows up to their door and guess how many have been charged. How many have been charged? Zero.

Todd: Then the FBI did its job.

Jordan: Zero.

Todd: Did the FBI not do its job?

As Todd pointed out, it’s not much of a scandal for the FBI to investigate tips and not arrest anyone. Even worse for Republicans, the videos of MAGA true-believers threatening public officials are a vivid demonstration of how conspiracy theories can whip up violent rhetoric. Democrats should be happy to discuss the subject.

Fourth, there are rakes aplenty for Republicans to step on. Each time a Republican screams that the government has been “weaponized,” Democrats should be prepared to go through the litany of real GOP abuses and outrages while in power: the failure to audit Trump’s taxes, the Justice Department’s pointless John Durham investigations, GOP governors transporting of unwary asylum seekers out of state and the abusive arrests of African American voters in Florida, to name a few. Simply because these issues are not the majority’s designated topics does not prevent Democrats from talking about them in hearings.

It seems Republicans imagine their hearings will be some sort of payback for the revealing, substantive and gripping investigation conducted by the House Jan. 6 Committee. But a major reason those hearings were so effective was the personnel. There were no disruptive Republicans on the panel, and there were plenty of whip-smart Democrats. Those same Democrats will be present on Republican-led committees. Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (Md.), for example, will be the ranking member on Comer’s Oversight Committee. Even the Democrats’ far-left flank should prove useful. Whatever one thinks of her politics, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), the No. 2 Democrat on the panel, has ably demonstrated her proficiency in hearings.

In addition, Democrats have set up a rapid response group, the Congressional Integrity Project, to fire back at Republicans. The group will point out which Republican officials participated in the 2020 coup attempt and which refused to testify before the Jan. 6 hearing. Knowing the media will likely give equal time to critics of the hearings, Democrats might receive plenty of oxygen to air Republicans’ dirty laundry.

#us politics #news #the washington post #2023 #118th congress #us house of representatives #house weaponization of the federal government investigation #house coronavirus pandemic investigation #house oversight committee #conservatives #republicans #gop policy #gop platform #gop #Democrats #polls #rep. james comer #rep. jim jordan #meet the press #chuck todd #rep. jamie raskin #rep. alexandria ocasio cortez #Congressional Integrity Project #op eds

[arpov-blog-blog]

..."According to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s version of events, Morris provided investigators with answers that helped advance the Republicans’ efforts. According to Morris’ attorney, Bryan Sullivan, Comer’s assessment was based on “cherry‐picked, out of context, and totally misleading descriptions of what Mr. Morris said.”

White House spokesperson Ian Sams responded soon after that Comer appeared to have been caught “blatantly lying,” while the committee chairman’s office told reporters that Comer’s claims would eventually be corroborated.

So, which is it? Did the Kentucky Republican get caught trying to mislead the public again, or did Comer finally tell the truth?

When we talked about this a couple of days ago, I left open the possibility of the latter. It seemed unlikely, of course, given Comer’s track record, but the transcript remained under wraps, and I was reluctant to reflexively assume that the GOP congressman was again playing a deceptive game. Maybe the committee was right, and the evidence would substantiate the chairman’s claims.

Or maybe not. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump read the transcript and arrived at the predictable conclusion.

["On Tuesday, the transcript was made public. And Sullivan’s criticism of Comer was very much proved to be warranted. ... [Morris] was deposed and his testimony was reshaped and molded by Comer to seem damaging because Comer and House Republicans are in the habit of doing that with everyone to whom they speak."]

If this were an isolated incident, and the Oversight Committee chair was usually a paragon of accuracy, it might be easier to overlook such a misstep, and perhaps chalk it up to sloppy staff work.

But therein lies the point: Comer is not usually a paragon of accuracy. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s been caught mischaracterizing closed-door testimony, only to get caught soon after, though the Devon Archer example is arguably the most dramatic.

What often goes overlooked is the unintended effect of this: If Comer had a compelling case to make against the president, he wouldn’t have to rely on deceptions, because the truth would be sufficient. The fact, however, that he and his party can’t rely on the truth ends up making Biden look better, not worse — because if there were compelling evidence of the Democrat engaging in wrongdoing, (a) Comer would’ve found it; and (b) Republicans wouldn’t have to make stuff up.

The result is an investigation that even other Republicans describe as “clueless,” a “disaster,” and a “parade of embarrassments.”

To be sure, I’m mindful of the broader dynamic. GOP officials are displeased with Comer, not because he’s failed to act with integrity, but because he was assigned the task of taking down the president, and he’s proven himself inept."

[worldofwardcraft]

Now playing: MAGA Meltdown.

October 5, 2023

Republicans have been going through some tough times lately. In fact, it might even be fair to say the Party is self-destructing. It certainly seems to be on the national level, but also in several states as well. For example, since being taken over by MAGA radicals earlier this year, the Michigan GOP found itself devoid of donors and with only $53.81 in the bank. Says Politico,

Around the nation, state Republican party apparatuses — once bastions of competency that helped produce statehouse takeovers — have become shells of their former machines amid infighting and a lack of organization.

On the national stage, House Republicans are in definite disarray. The impeachment inquiry Donald Trump demanded is fast disintegrating. Even their own witnesses are unable to provide any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. And GOPers are now openly wondering if committee chairman James Comer is up to the job and whether Ohio's shouty, half-dressed Jim Jordan might be a better replacement (spoiler: he wouldn't).

Meanwhile, after weeks of tantrums and posturing by the Republican bomb-throwers, with their countless demands to gut government programs, defund the Trump investigations, punish the military and shut down the federal government, Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally bowed to political reality and compromised with the Democrats to pass a "clean" Continuing Resolution to keep the government open for another 45 days.

Naturally, the Republican burn-it-all-down caucus was suitably outraged. And Florida attention hog Matt Gaetz introduced a resolution to strip McCarthy of his office as punishment. When he couldn't muster enough GOP votes to defeat the resolution, the ineffectual, limp-gaveled Speaker lost his position, leaving the House leaderless (which it basically was already).

In reprisal, Republicans are relentlessly dishing dirt on Gaetz, who is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over possible sex trafficking with underage girls. One congressman told Faux News, “No one can stand him at this point."

As for the nominal head of this political dumpster fire, Trump is rapidly losing what's left of his mind over his impending criminal trials, imprisonment and dismemberment of his businesses. Standing outside the New York courtroom where his trial for fraud is being conducted, he insulted the judge, raged at Attorney General Letitia James and attacked the judge's clerk, which earned him a scathing gag order from the judge.

Clearly, the party of Trump is coming apart at the seams. Its congressional delegation is at war with themselves, its presumed presidential nominee is becoming increasingly unhinged, and many of its state organizations are close to bankrupt. So sit back and enjoy the show.

#house republicans #trump mental health #matt gaetz

[themotherlove]

Dr. Mother Love & Cool TLC  We are on the brink of a Gov. shutdown. Lifesaving Gov. programs for women/children/elders our soldiers, Headstart,  the repubs are playing with our lives, and start a bogus impeachment of POTUS Biden, jordan gets lit again. ADA Willis & more

#themotherloveshow #cooltlc #Government shut down #POTUS indictment #GOP star witness in indictment

[pashterlengkap]

GOP members of congress are badmouthing Rep. George Santos to the press

Republican congressmen are badmouthing gay Rep. George Santos (R-NY) as he faces increasing scrutiny over his questionable recent statements and possible campaign finance violations. On Monday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said, “[Santos] appears to be a bunny boiler,” a reference to a murderous stalker who boils a pet rabbit alive in the 1987 film Fatal Attraction. “He’s nutty as a fruitcake,” Kennedy continued, saying that he would kick Santos out of office if criminal allegations against the freshman legislator prove true. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) took aim at his fellow Republican Rep. George Santos, calling the freshman congressman 'nutty as a fruitcake' and a 'bunny boiler' pic.twitter.com/zShBlgFg7M— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 24, 2023 On Tuesday, Santos responded to Kennedy’s comment, writing via Twitter, “I am saddened that a distinguished senator from the GOP, whom I’ve respected would use such derogatory language against me. Language like that is hurtful and divisive, and has no place in Congress.” I am saddened that a distinguished senator from the GOP, whom I've respected would use such derogatory language against me. Language like that is hurtful and divisive, and has no place in Congress. https://t.co/O7gA2zmZRo— Rep. George Santos (@RepSantosNY03) January 24, 2023 However, Kennedy isn’t the only Republican criticizing Santos. On Sunday, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the newly appointed Chairperson of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said on CNN’s State of the Union, “Look, he’s a bad guy.” Comer said he hadn’t introduced himself to Santos “because, you know, it’s pretty despicable the lies that he tells.” Comer said that it’s up to Santos whether or not to resign (Santos has said he won’t). However, Comer added, “Certainly I don’t approve of how he made his way to Congress.” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Chairperson of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said of Santos, “I don’t know how he got through the process, being such an imposter. I don’t know why his opponent didn’t bring this out in the election.” Six Republican congresspeople from New York and the Nassau County Republican Party have all called on Santos to resign. Santos skipped a Monday night White House event welcoming congressional freshmen, hosted by President Joe Biden (D). Recently, Santos admitted to being a drag queen after initially denying it. More recently, Santos claimed he was the victim of an assassination attempt. He also claimed that, in summer 2021, a robber took his shoes in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue, one of New York City’s busiest streets, but he has yet to produce a police report confirming this. Santos also claimed in 2020 that he met deceased child trafficker and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Santos said that he believed Epstein could still be alive, even though Epstein died in August 2019. In addition to numerous falsehoods in his personal and work history, Santos is under an ethics investigation for possibly violating campaign finance laws. He recently admitted that large amounts of money he claimed were “personal” loans to his campaign came from elsewhere. He also been accused of check fraud in Brazil and of stealing money designated for the medical care of a veteran’s dying dog. There seem to be no public records confirming that Santos is married to the man he calls his husband. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently said, “[Santos is] almost a joke; he’s become a punchline. He’s outrageous, and there’s no way he should be allowed to serve.” http://dlvr.it/ShSD8C

[virallyfeeds]

Maria Bartiromo speaks exclusively with Rep. Comer, Devin Nunes and more on Biden's classified docs scandal

REP JAMES COMER (R-KY) TELLS MARIA BARTIROMO THAT THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE IS SENDING LETTERS TO THE SECRET SERVICE TOMORROW FOR CORRESPONDENCE ON BIDEN’S CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS Congressman James Comer (R-KY) Does anyone believe that those classified documents, when they left the vice president’s office, they just took them to multiple locations all over the East Coast? It has the appearance…

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[legalupanishad]

US to ban TikTok: Lawmakers introduce a Bill

This article on 'US lawmakers introduce a bill to ban TikTok: All you need to know' was written by Monika Yadav, an intern at Legal Upanishad.

Introduction

This article deals with the bill introduced by US legislation for the effective ban on the usage of social media platforms that create threats to the security of the nation as well as of individual data as the app operated by China (TikTok) has allegedly used the data and location of individual results in manipulation of the content the personal view on that particular app. Recently, on Tuesday a bill has been introduced in US Congress to prohibit such activities. In this article, we discuss the same in detail.

About the bill

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, on Tuesday, unveiled a bipartisan bill to outlaw the widely known TikTok online networking platform in China, growing demands on the app's founder ByteDance Ltd. following American concerns that the programme could be utilized for spying on or criticizing citizens. According to a press statement by Rubio's office, the measure would stop any transactions out of any social media platforms based in or influence by China and Russia. Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher and Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi are the sponsors of a guide bill within the U.S. House of Representatives. In response to a call for remark, ByteDance was silent right away. Gallagher compared the app to "digital fentanyl," saying that allowing it to continue operating in the United States would be similar to enabling the Soviet Union to acquire the New York Times, Washington Post, and significant telecast network services throughout the Cold War. The app is approximated to have one billion average monthly subscribers. In 2020, the previous president Donald Trump made an effort to prevent new U.S. consumers from installing WeChat & TikTok, which might have proficiently stopped the usage of these applications in the country, but he lost several legal challenges. Due to concerns that U.S. customer data would be transferred to China's communist government, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a significant national security agency of the U.S. authorities, directed ByteDance to withdraw from TikTok in 2020. President Joe Biden authorized the Commerce Department to study the security issues raised by the applications after President Donald Trump dropped his executive orders which aimed to outlaw the downloading in June 2021.

US to ban TikTok: Lawmakers introduce a Bill

False statements with political overtones: US to Ban TikTok

The business might just have misinformed Congress regarding the amount of customer data it shared with China, according to issues expressed by House Republican representatives the previous month. Republican leaders upon that House's energy & commerce and inspection committees, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and James Comer, respectively, addressed TikTok to express their concerns about what they saw to be misleading material in the staff briefings. The Republican congressmen wrote to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew claiming that "some of the material TikTok gave throughout the staff briefing seems to be inaccurate or deceptive," besides that "TikTok somehow doesn't monitor U.S. customer locations." Republican lawmakers will take over the House next January, or the letter might be a precursor to the intense investigation that intends to give Chinese corporations. Because of worries about national security, several states, the majority of which are governed by Republicans, have recently banned the usage of TikTok on computers and mobile devices used by state governments, particularly Alabama and Utah from Monday. "Unsettlingly, TikTok collects enormous amounts of data, the majority of which carries no real relation to the app's purported function of video content. This intolerable susceptibility to Chinese espionage efforts is brought by the use of TikTok in conjunction with governmental IT infrastructure "Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama stated in a release. TikTok is prohibited on state-owned gadgets in Texas, Maryland, & South Dakota, among many other U.S. states. Indiana has indeed filed a lawsuit against the app, claiming that it misleads users regarding China's accessibility to their information and exposes kids to inappropriate material. A spokesman for TikTok expressed disappointment in the fact that "so many states are rushing on the trend to enact legislation based on unsubstantiated, politically tinged misinformation regarding TikTok" in a statement released on Monday.

The Director of the FBI is concerned about potential influence activities

Republican Brendan Carr, the federal communications commissioner, posted on Twitter claiming at least nine states had taken measures against TikTok "focused on the substantial security dangers it offers." In congressional testimony the previous month, FBI Director Chris Wray warned of the danger that the Chinese authorities may use the video-sharing software to manipulate users or take access to their gadgets. The Chinese government "may be able to exploit to manage data gathering on millions of individuals or manipulate the recommendation system, which could be utilized for impact activities," according to Wray, who listed the threats. He added that Beijing might be able to "manage programs on millions of gadgets” by using the app, allowing it the chance to "technically compromise” such gadgets. According to Vanessa Pappas, a TikTok executive, TikTok was "heading in the right direction towards that final deal with the U.S. authorities that will further secure U.S. user data and properly satisfy U.S. national security needs," she told Congress in September.

Conclusion

According to a June BuzzFeed News story, workers of ByteDance, the parent firm of TikTok, who are based in China, had access to private information about American users. TikTok admitted that Chinese staff members have some access to U.S. data but denied ever giving any to Chinese authorities. A number of states have already taken action to forbid TikTok use on equipment used by the government and the introduction of this bill is a big step by the United States Government to place a permanent ban on the use of TikTok.

Reference

- U.S. Lawmakers introduce bill to ban TikTok, Available at: https://www-cbc-ca.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/ (Accessed: December 15, 2022). - Olafimihan Oshin, Lawmakers introduce bill to ban TikTok in US, Available at: https://thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/thehill.com/policy/technology/3773695-lawmakers-introduce-bill-to-ban-tiktok-in-us/amp/ (Accessed: December 15, 2022). - Brian Fung, US Lawmakers introduce bill to ban TikTok social media app, Available at: https://abc7chicago-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/abc7chicago.com/amp/tiktok-ban-in-us-marco-rubio-bytedance/ (Accessed: December 15, 2022). Read the full article

#LawsintheUS #TikTokBan

[centrecollege]

Name: Mary-Carter Downing '20 Major: Politics Organization: Congressman Comer's Office Position: Intern Location: Washington, DC Term: Summer 2019

"This experience has allowed me to understand the ins and outs of how a Congressional office works to support the member and their constituents. By being a politics major doing an intern in our nation's capital I was able to first-hand see how many groups work together in our governmental affairs."

#internship #politics major #internship funding #Centre Internship Plus #politics #congress #Congressman Comer's Office #Washington DC #summer internship

[bamby0304]

The Hart III: Secrets

Chapter 14: Angel Radio II

Series Masterlist

Summary: Three months… Dean was gone for three months and now he’s back. He’s back and he truly has no idea how much things have changed. Life moved on while Dean was in Hell, and now things are complicated. With new faces and troubles right around the corner, will the trio find a way to come back together? Or has all hope been lost?

Warnings: Angst. Violence. Smut.

A/N: This chapter is extra-long in the hopes that you'll all love me for the lack of Lizzie love in the last few chapters. So, I hope you enjoy :):)

Bamby

EPOV

It was dark and late. I'd fallen asleep a few hours ago. Being home alone with nothing much to do... it left me feeling drained. With no cases and no one to keep me company, I'd thought an early night was in order. I'd actually been having a decent sleep… that was until a loud knocking on the front door woke me up at four o'clock in the morning.

Hurrying down the stairs, tugging on my dressing gown to cover my bare legs- seeing as I was only sleeping in some grey cotton shorts and a loose black shirt- I headed for the door. I didn't really care what I looked like. Not at this hour.

Groaning, I threw the door open, fully intending on yelling at whoever it was, only to stop at the sight before me. Dean, Ruby and a red-headed girl around my age stood there. The girl was nervous and scared. Ruby unsure and worried. Dean shocked and hopeful.

My heart sank. It had been over a month since I'd seen either Winchester. I hadn't realised just how much I missed them until this moment.

"Dean..." My eyes scanned his face. I didn't miss all the cuts and bruises. Letting go of my dressing gown, I stepped forward to cup his cheek, checking his wounds. "What the hell happened? Are you okay?"

He relaxed a little, offering me a small smile. "Hey, Liz."

"Liz?" the red-head spoke up suddenly, sounding surprised. "As in, Elizabeth Rose Hart?"

Pulling away from Dean, I turned to eye the girl. "Yeah... who's asking?"

Before she could answer, Dean started talking, pulling my attention to him, "Liz... we need your help." He sighed, "Long story short, this is Anna, she can hear angel radio. Angels want her dead-"

Ruby cut him off, "Demons just want her."

Ignoring her, Dean went on, "I know it's a lot to ask, but you think we can stay here until-"

It was my turn to cut him off, "Come inside."

...

"Here." I offered Anna some tea and a blanket as she sat on the couch in the panic room. "The walls are made of iron and salt. This place is one hundred per cent demon proof," I assured her.

"Which I find racist, by the way," Ruby commented from outside the room.

Dean rolled his eyes at her from where he stood on the other side of the panic room, watching Anna and I. "Write to your congressman."

Shaking her head, Ruby kept her eyes on me, pulling three bags from her pocket. "Here."

I stepped forward, taking the hex bags from her. "What are these for?"

"They'll hide us from angels, demons, all comers. They're extra-crunchy."

Shrugging, I tossed one to Dean and handed another to Anna. "Don't lose that, okay," I told her.

"Thanks, Ruby." Dean looked down at the bag and then to Anna. "So, Anna, what's playing on angel radio? Anything useful?"

"It's quiet. Dead silence," she answered, voice so soft. She reminded me of a mouse. Small quiet, scared, adorable.

Dean clearly didn't like that answer. "Good. That's not troubling at all."

Anna turned to watch him as he moved around the room. "We're in trouble, huh? You guys are scared?"

Looking from Anna to Ruby, to me, Dean didn't answer right away. The two of us stood there, looking at each other, not wanting to tell the truth. We both knew she was right. We both knew we were all in trouble, and totally screwed. But that didn't mean she had to know.

Pulling his gaze from me, Dean finally answered. "Nah."

"Hey, Dean!" Sam called from upstairs.

I smiled down at Anna comfortingly. "Stay down here, okay?"

She nodded, shifting to get a little more comfortable. "Thank you, Elizabeth. For all of this." She gave me a small smile. "I'm, not sure why the angels don't like you."

It was like a slap to the face, putting a frown on my lips. The angels didn't like me? I thought I was just background noise, someone that hung around the guy they wanted to use to save the world. I knew they didn't like Sam, but me?

Before I could really dive into the idea, Dean called out, "Liz. You comin'?"

Clearing my throat, coming back to earth, I nodded. "Uh, yeah."

Following Dean, the two of us headed upstairs and into the kitchen where we found Sam waiting. The moment he saw me, a smile spread on his face.

"Lizzie?"

"Sam." I smiled back at him, moving forward to wrap him up in a hug.

After a moment, he pulled away, looking down at me. "Where's Bobby?"

"The Dominican," I answered as we started to head into the office.

"He's working a job?"

"God, I hope so," Dean piped up. "Otherwise, he's at hedonism in a banana hammock and a trucker cap."

"Now that's seared in my brain." Sam shuddered, causing me to chuckle lightly.

"How's the car?" Dean asked, always worried about his Baby.

"I got her. She's fine," Sam assured him.

With that out of the way, Dean got straight down to business. "All right, what did you find on Anna?"

"Uh, not much." Sam led us to the desk as he opened the file he was holding. "Her parents were, uh… Rich and Amy Milton. A church deacon and a housewife."

"Riveting," Dean noted sarcastically.

"Yeah. But there is something here in the report." Sam gestured to the papers where it showed what he was talking about. "Turns out this latest psych episode wasn't her first. When she was two and a half, she'd get hysterical any time her dad got close. She was convinced that he wasn't her real daddy."

"Who was? The plumber, hmm?" Dean asked, joking around. "A little snaking the pipes?"

Sam sighed at his brother. "Dude, you're confusing reality with porn again."

I missed this about these two. How they could joke around and mess about, but at the end of the day, they always got the job done. I missed the fact that they never judged or teased. You could be whoever you were around these two, and they'd go along with it.

Getting back to it, Sam turned to the file again. "Look, Anna didn't say. She just kept repeating that this real father of hers was mad. Very mad. Like wanted-to-kill-her mad."

I frowned. "She was two?"

"Kind of heavy for a two-year-old," Dean noted, as shocked as I was.

"Well, she saw a kid's shrink, got better, and grew up normal," Sam finished.

"Until now," Dean noted. "So, what's she hiding?"

"Why don't you just ask me to my face?"

The three of us were startled at the sound of Anna. Looking over, we found her standing off to the side, in the doorway of the office, arms crossed over her chest, Ruby next to her, the red-head clearly not happy.

Dean turned to glare at Ruby. "Nice job watching her."

Ruby gave a short shrug. "I'm watching her."

Sighing, Sam turned to Anna. "No, you're right, Anna. Is there anything you want to tell us?"

"About what?"

"The angels said you were guilty of something. Why would they say that?"

"You tell me," Anna started, tears growing in her eyes. "Tell me why my life has been levelled. Why my parents are dead. I don't know. I swear. I would give anything to know."

"Okay." Sam shrugged. "Then let's find out."

DPOV

After coming back to Bobby's having left to go get Pamela, I helped her down the basement stairs, leading her down step by step carefully. "We're here!" I called.

A moment later, Sam walked around, smiling up at us. "Pamela, hey!"

"Sam?"

He nodded down at her as she came to stop in front of him with me behind her. "It's me," he told her. "It's Sam"

"Sam?"

"Yeah."

Reaching forward, she grabbed his outstretched arms as his hand landed on her shoulder. "Sam, is that you?"

"I'm right here."

She let out a breath. "Know how I can tell?" Her hands carefully dropped before she suddenly grabbed his ass. "That perky little ass of yours. You could bounce a nickel off that thing," she chuckled. "Of course I know it's you, grumpy. Same way I know that's a demon, and that poor girl's Anna and that you've been eyeing my rack."

"Uh... uh... uh..." Sam stuttered.

She just shook her head at him. "Don't sweat it, kiddo. I still got more senses than most."

"Got it."

"Now..." Pulling away from Sam, Pamela looked over to where Ruby, Anna and Liz stood. "Come here." She stretched her arms out. "You know who I'm talking to."

Smiling widely, Liz stepped forward, wrapping her arms around Pam. "God, I missed you."

Pamela held her for a moment longer before she pulled back, a slight frown on her face. "Is there something you're not telling me?" Her hands gave Liz's shoulders a light squeeze. "There's something different about you..."

Liz looked guilty. It was only for a second, and I had a feeling I was the only one who caught it, but it was gone before I could read into it. "Everything's fine, Pam. I swear." It was a lie, but no one was going to question her. We all had secrets. "Why don't you come meet Anna?"

Nodding slowly, Pam let Liz lead her over to the red-head. "Hey, Anna. How are you? I'm Pamela."

Anna was as nervous as ever but surprisingly gave Pamela a smile. "Hi."

"Dean told me what's been going on. I'm excited to help."

"Oh. That's nice of you."

"Oh, well, not really. Any chance I can dick over an angel, I'm taking it."

"Why?"

"They stole something from me." Reaching for her glasses, Pamela showed Anna what I'd seen before. Where her eyes had been, now sat white plastic balls. "Demon-y, I know. But they're just plastic. Good for business. Makes me look extra-psychic, don't you think?" She laughed, which managed to make Anna's smile grow a little more. "Now," wrapping an arm around Ann's shoulders, they started for the panic room, "how about you tell me what your deal is? Hmm? Don't you worry."

I was about to follow when I noticed Liz step up to Ruby. The two of them sharing a look. Nothing really unusual about it. It was when they walked off to stand outside the panic room together, side by side, that's when I thought something was up. Maybe Sam wasn't the only one who had Ruby on their good side.

EPOV

I stood with Ruby outside the panic room, watching as Anna settled on the bed in the room, Pamela pulled a chair up by the bed, Sam sat on a box near the door and Dean sat on the desk by the bed.

Once we were all still, Pamela got started. "Nice and relaxed. Now, I'm going to count down from five to zero. When we're at zero, you'll be in a deep state of hypnosis. As I count down, just go deeper and deeper, okay? Five... four... three... two... one. Deep sleep. Deep sleep. Every muscle calm and relaxed. Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you," Anna answered in her sleeping state.

"Now, Anna, tell me... How can you hear the angels? How did you work that spell?"

"I don't know. I just did."

"Your father... what's his name?"

"Rich Milton."

"All right." Seeing as Anna wasn't pushing herself enough, Pamela upped the ante. "But I want you to look further back... when you were very young... just a couple of years old."

Anna shook her head. "I don't want to."

"It'll be okay. Anna, just one look. That's all we need."

Anna started to struggle. "No."

"What's your dad's name?" Pamela pressed. "Your real dad. Why is he angry at you?"

"No. No! No." Suddenly Anna let out an ear-piercing scream. "No!"

"Calm down." Pamela stayed very calm.

But Anna just kept screaming and struggling. "He's gonna kill me!" she yelled. The lights above her flickered as she tossed and turned, screaming in fear and pain.

"Anna, you're safe," Pamela assured her.

"No!" Anna screamed again, and this time, the lights exploded before the door shut in Ruby's and my face. "He's gonna kill me!"

Eyes wide, I reached for the door, but it wouldn't budge. "Shit." Pulling back a little, listening to the screams inside, I knew I had to get in there. Looking to the door, I forced it open with my mind, using so much strength I nearly ripped it from its hinges.

Suddenly Dean was flying across the room after Anna pushed him away in her panicked state.

"Dean!" I hurried over to him. Helping him to his feet, I made sure he was okay before we both turned to Anna and Pam again.

Pamela stood and reached for Anna, seeing that the girl wouldn't calm. "Wake in one, two, three, four, five." Just like that, Anna was calm as she slowly woke up. "Anna..." Pamela brushed Anna's hair from her face. "Anna? You all right?"

Carefully, Anna sat up. "Thank you, Pamela. That helped a lot. I remember now."

Sam frowned, standing on Dean's other side. "Remember what?"

Anna looked over at us. "Who I am."

"I'll bite. Who are you?" Dean pressed.

"I'm an angel."

SPOV

In the office, out of the basement, Dean, Pam and I leaned against the desk, Ruby stood in the doorway of the kitchen, Anna paced in the middle of the room, while Lizzie stood off in the corner.

"Don't be afraid, I'm not like the others," Anna assured us.

Ruby crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "I don't find that very reassuring."

"Neither do I," Pam added.

Not bother to change their minds, Anna turned to Dean. "So... Castiel, Uriel. They're the ones that came for me?"

How did she know that? "You know them?"

She shrugged. "We were kind of in the same foxhole."

"So, what, were they like your bosses or something?" Dean asked.

She gave a little smile. "Try the other way around."

He grinned at her. "Look at you."

"But now they want to kill you?" Pamela was clearly not happy about this situation, and I honestly didn't blame her. So far- besides bringing Dean back- the angels hadn't done much to earn our trust.

Shrugging again, Anna started to pace once more. "Orders are orders. I'm sure I have a death sentence on my head."

"Why?" Pamela want details, just like the rest of us did.

"I disobeyed. Which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell."

Dean frowned, confused. "Meaning?"

It was Pam who answered though. "She fell to earth, became human."

"Wait a minute," I started, needing some things to be cleared up. "I don't understand. So, angels can just become human?"

Anna nodded. "It kind of hurts. Try cutting your kidney out with a butter knife. That kind of hurt. I ripped out my grace."

"Come again?"

She looked over at Dean again. "My grace. It's... energy. Hacked it out and fell. My mother, Amy, couldn't get pregnant. Always called me her little miracle. She had no idea how right she was."

"So, you just forgot that you were God's little Power Ranger?"

She nodded at Dean's question. "The older I got, the longer I was human, yeah."

"I don't think you all appreciate how completely screwed we are," Ruby noted, drawing everyone's attention to her.

Anna sighed. "Ruby's right. Heaven wants me dead."

"And Hell just wants her." Ruby shook her head. "A flesh-and-blood angel that you can question, torture, that bleeds." She looked to Anna. "Sister, you're the Stanley Cup. And sooner or later, Heaven or Hell, they're gonna find you."

"I know." Anna wouldn't stop pacing. "And that's why I'm gonna get it back."

Now that was not what I was expecting to hear. "What?"

"My grace," Anna elaborated.

"You can do that?" Dean sounded impressed.

"If I can find it," Anna explained.

"So, what," Dean started, trying to wrap his head around all this news. We all were. "You're just gonna take some divine bong hit, and, shazam, you're Roma Downey?"

"Something like that." Anna's answer didn't leave me feeling too confident.

"All right." Dean nodded, a grin growing on his lips. "I like this plan. So, where's this grace of yours?"

"Lost track. I was falling about ten thousand miles per hour at the time."

"Wait." I might be able to work with that... "You mean falling, like, literally?"

"Yes."

"Like the way a human eye can see? Like a comet, maybe, or a meteor?"

"Why do you ask?"

...

I'd been researching all afternoon and well into the night. Sitting on the couch in Bobby's office, books and old magazines surrounding us, I showed Ruby what I'd finally found.

"Here. In March '85, a meteorite vanished in the night sky over northwestern Ohio. It was sighted nine months before Anna was born, and she was born in that part of Ohio."

She looked down at me from where she sat on the arm of the couch, a smirk on her lips. "You're pretty buff for a nerd."

Ignoring her comment, I got to the point. "Look, I think it was Anna." I grabbed another book to show her. "And here, same time. Another meteor over Kentucky."

"And that's her grace?"

"Might be."

"All right." Shrugging, she stood and started to walk away. "That just narrows it down to an entire state."

I closed the book with a sigh. "Look, it's a start."

"Sam... I'm sorry." Shaking her head, she turned to me.

"For what?"

"For bringing you this mess. If I had known, I would have kept my trap shut."

"Yeah, well," I put the book back on the couch beside me, "we'll muddle through."

"Not this time. You do not want to get between these two armies. It's Godzilla and Mothra. If one side doesn't get us, the other one will."

"So, what do you want to do? Dump Anna and run?" I asked. the look on her face told me she was thinking exactly that. "Forget it." getting up, I grabbed my laptop and went to start cleaning up. "Look, I know the angels freak you out-"

She cut me off, "Forget the angels. It's Alastair I'm scared of."

"Alastair?"

"You met him in the church. Practically the grand inquisitor downstairs. Picasso with a razor."

"And?"

"And you should pull him out and throw him back in the pit. If you weren't so out of shape."

I leaned against the desk with yet another sigh. "Ruby-"

"No. Your abilities. You're getting flabby."

"Yeah, so how do I tone up?"

"You know how," she claimed, stepping towards me. "You know what you got to do."

Looking away, I thought about it for a moment, just a moment, before I shook my head. "No, I'm not doing that anymore."

"Sam-"

"I said no," I told her, final.

"Well, then you better pray that Anna gets her groove back, or we're all dead." Turning, she went to leave, but before she could get far, I stopped her.

"Lizzie did it."

Pausing just steps from the kitchen doorway, she barely looked over her shoulder at me. "She did what?"

"She helped me pull a demon out. A strong demon." Pushing off the desk, I stood straight as Ruby turned to me. "She helped me pull out a demon without doing everything I've had to do."

Ruby looked shocked, impressed, and something else I couldn't quite read. "She did?"

I gave a short nod. "She can even start fires with her mind now."

There was a short silence that fell over us before she let out a short and harsh laugh. "That's why she was here instead of with you and Dean, isn't it? Because of her powers?"

"She freaked out," I admitted. "Left on Halloween, over a month ago."

Shaking her head, Ruby actually looked pissed and disappointed. "You of all people should know that going through something like that... you need people you can trust, Sam. Lizzie needs you."

"But, Dean-"

"Screw Dean," she snapped. "He doesn't understand. You do. Out of everyone in the world, she's the closest you're going to get to someone understanding you. You're the closest she'll get to someone understanding her. So be there." Turning, she went to leave again, only to stop herself. "Is there any chance Lizzie could pull Alastair out?"

"No." I didn't even have to think about it. She'd barely been able to pull Samhain out and that was while I worked with her.

"Then we really need angel-girl to get her mojo back."

DPOV

I parked Baby outside of Bobby's, seeing Anna leaning against another car, looking up at the night sky. Getting out of the car and closing the door behind me, I started towards her, hands shoved in my pockets.

"Pamela get home okay?" she asked after briefly looking over her shoulder at me.

"Yeah." I nodded, coming to stop beside the car, just behind her. "She said she was sorry. It's just after last time, she, uh... this is just a little too rich for her blood."

"I don't blame her. You guys should do the same."

"Well, we're not that smart." Moving around to lean on the trunk next to her, I spoke up again. "Can I ask you something? What do they want me for? Why did they save me?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. The angels aren't talking about it. And it was after I fell."

I nodded, understanding. But her answer left me wondering something else. "That's another question. Why would you fall? Why would you want to be one of us?"

"You don't mean that."

"I don't? A bunch of- of miserable bastards... eating, crapping, confused, afraid."

"I don't know. There's loyalty... forgiveness... love."

"Pain."

"Chocolate cake."

"Guilt."

"Sex."

I tried to think of something to argue with that, but there was nothing. "Yeah, you got me there."

She smiled. "I mean it. Every emotion, Dean, even the bad ones... it's why I fell. It's why... why I'd give anything not to have to go back. Anything."

"Feelings are overrated if you ask me."

"Beats being an angel."

"How's that possible? You guys are powerful and perfect. You don't doubt yourselves or God. Or anything."

"Perfect. Like a marble statue. Cold. No choice. Only obedience. Dean, do you know how many angels have actually seen God? Seen his face?"

I shrugged. "All of you?"

"Four angels. Four. And I'm not one of them."

"That's it? Well, then how do you even know that there is a God?"

"We have to take it on faith... which we're killed if we don't have."

That was a shock to me. "Huh."

"I was stationed on earth for two thousand years. Just... watching." She sounded so sad as she went on. "Silent. Invisible. Out on the road. Sick for home. Waiting on orders from an unknowable father I can't begin to understand. So don't tell me that-"

As she described what it had been like for her to be an angel, I couldn't help but find similarities in my own life. Before I knew what I was doing, I let out a short chuckle.

She frowned, turning to me. "What is so funny? What?"

I shook my head at her, feeling bad that I'd laughed when she was clearly upset. "Nothing. Sorry. It's just..." I shrugged, looking down at her. "I can relate."

"Hey!" We turned to see Sam standing a few feet away.

"Did you find something?" I asked.

He nodded. "I think so."

EPOV

I stood off to the side, Ruby having already shown and told me everything Sam had found. Right now, he was telling and showing Anna and Dean everything. Letting them in on the plan he was working on. Which wasn't really a plan. More like an idea.

"Union, Kentucky." He gestured to the map set out on the desk in front of them. "Found some accounts of a local miracle."

"Yeah?" Dean pressed, wanting his brother to get to the point.

"Yeah," Sam went on. "In '85, there was an empty field outside of town. Six months later, there was a full-grown oak. They say it looks a century old at least."

Pulling away from the desk, Dena turned to Anna. "Anna, what do you think?"

"The grace." She nodded. "Where it hit, it could have done something like that, easy."

"So, grace ground zero. It's not destruction. It's..."

"Pure creation," Anna finished for him.

...

I could not believe I was sitting in the back of the Impala, between Anna-the-angel and Ruby-the-demon.

Could this day get any weirder?

Before we'd all set off to find Anna's grace, Sam had pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted to go. I guess the others had just assumed I would. But he'd noticed how quiet I was being.

At first, I'd been about to say no. It's not like they really needed me. But one look at Dean, and before I realised what I was saying, I'd agreed to go with them.

Since then, I hadn't stopped kicking myself. Missing Sam and Dean was fine, but the way I was feeling towards Dean wasn't fine. I had a boyfriend, one I cared for dearly. So, what the hell was going on with me?

A chuckle from the front seat caught my attention as I caught Dean's eyes in the rear-view mirror.

"What?" Ruby asked what we were all thinking.

"Nothing." Dean shook his head. "It's just an angel, a hunter and a demon riding in the backseat." He chuckled lightly again, "It's like the setup to a bad joke... or a Penthouse Forum letter."

Sam sighed, shaking his head beside his brother. "Dude. Reality. Porn."

Dean scoffed. "You call this reality?"

...

Climbing out of the car, we all walked over to stand in front of Baby, looking up at the giant oak tree standing before us. The way the light shone down on it. The dark colour of the bark and deep colour of the leaves. The way it towered as if reaching for the heavens...

"It's beautiful," Dean said what I was sure we were all thinking.

"It's where the grace touched down." Anna nodded. "I can feel it."

"You ready to do this?" Dean asked her.

"Not really." But knowing she didn't have much of a choice, Anna started forward anyway, heading for the tree.

We were all a stop behind her, coming to stand by the large trunk of the magnificent oak.

"Anna, what are we even looking for?" Sam had a good point.

Reaching forward, Anna rested a hand on the tree. The moment she touched it, I saw her shoulders slump slightly, and without her saying anything I already knew what was wrong.

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. It's not here. Not anymore. Someone took it."

...

It was dark, again. We'd found a barn to hole up in for the night, but we all knew we couldn't stay here. Not when every angel and demon were after us. We needed to be someplace where we could protect ourselves properly.

"We still got the hex bags," Dean noted, ready to get back on the road. "I say we head back to the panic room."

"What, forever?" Ruby asked, clearly not liking that plan.

"I'm just thinking out loud!" Dean snapped at her.

"Oh, you call that thinking?"

I rolled my eyes, not really in the mood for any arguments. "Would you two shut it?"

But Ruby wasn't letting it go. "Anna's grace is gone. You understand? She can't angel up. She can't protect us. We can't fight Heaven and Hell. One side maybe, but not both. Not at once."

"Um... guys?" Anna spoke up from where she sat on a desk. We all turned to her. "The angels are talking again."

"What are they saying?" Sam asked.

"It's weird. Like a recording. A loop. It says... 'Dean Winchester gives us Anna by midnight, or-'." She stopped herself short.

"Or what?" Dean pressed.

Turning to look at him, Anna answered. "'...or we hurl him back to damnation'."

"No." I shook my head. "No, that's not happening. We're not giving Anna up." I turned to Dean. "And there is no way in hell that you're going back to... well, hell. I don't care what we have to do."

Nodding, on my side, Sam could see there weren't many options left for us. "Anna... do you know of any weapon that works on an angel?"

"To what? To kill them?" She sounded offended, but when Sam nodded she answered simply, "Nothing we could get to... not right now."

"Okay, wait, wait. I say we call Bobby," Dean suggested. "We get him back from hedonism-"

Sam shook his head at his brother. "Dean, what's he gonna tell us that we don't already know?"

"I don't know, but we got to think of something!"

DPOV

Leaning over Baby's hood, reading a book on angel lore, I tried to focus. But my mind just kept going back to the possibility of the night ending with me back in hell... There was nothing worse than that. There's a reason why people describe shitty things as being hell. Hell, was hell.

Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. Looking up, I found Anna headed towards me. "Hey. Holding up okay?"

"Trying."

Nodding, I turned back to the book. "Yeah."

"A little scared, I guess," she admitted. "So, um... Dean." Pulling away from the book, I turned to her as she went on. "I just wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"Everything. You guys... you didn't have to help me-"

"Hey, let's can the 'thanks for trying' speech, you know? Participation trophies suck ass." I chuckled lightly.

"I don't know. Maybe I don't deserve to be saved."

"Don't talk like that."

"I disobeyed. Lucifer disobeyed. It's our murder one, and I knew it. Maybe I got to pay."

"Yeah, well, we've all done things we got to pay for," I noted.

I knew I'd done plenty of things I'd end up paying for sooner or later. Before and after Hell. Hunting, it wasn't exactly a clean-living life. We had to break laws to survive out here. Hurt people. It was just how we did the job...

But the worse things I'd ever done... well they all came from my time down under.

Moving to sit on Baby's hood, she looked up at me. "I gotta tell you something. You're not gonna like it."

"Okay. what?"

"About a week ago, I heard the angels talking... about you... what you did in Hell. Dean, I know." I tensed, and she noticed. Raising her hand, she cupped my cheek softly. "It wasn't your fault. You should forgive yourself."

I shook my head, pulling away from her hand slightly. "Anna, I-I don't w-want to, uh... I don't want to..." I struggled with words. "I can't talk about that."

"I know. But when you can, you have people that want to help. You are not alone. That's all I'm trying to say." Slowly and carefully, she stood and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to my lips.

When she pulled back, I looked down at her, confused. "What was that for?"

She smiled up at me. "You know... our last night on Earth... all that."

A small grin found its way onto my lips. "You're stealing my best line."

EPOV

I stepped outside to get some fresh air and to make a call. As I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialled Tristan's number, I froze. My eyes had looked up and landed right on Baby, and I could not believe what I was seeing. Even through the foggy windows, I could make out the two intertwined bodies as they rocked against each other.

Dean and Anna. Together. In Baby. Having sex. Dean and Anna. Sex. In the Impala. Dean and Anna. Naked. In the car. Dean Winchester and Anna the angel... having sex.

"Hey, babe."

I jumped at the sound of Tristan's voice in my ear, having forgotten about the phone call for a moment. "Oh, uh… hi."

There was a long pause as I still stood there, watching as the fog on the windows grew, and the car continued to rock.

"Everything okay?" Tristan asked, pulling my attention to him again. "You, uh... you been taking your pills?"

Shaking my head to try and focus, I turned away from the car, wondering why I was hurting... "Uh, yeah. Yes. I've been taking them," I assured him. "I just... a lot of crap is going on and I wanted to know when you'll be back."

"Oh, babe, I don't know. My friend, he really needs me. You know? But I'm trying to work through everything as fast as I can so I can come back home to you. Promise."

A small smile spread on my lips, but I knew it was partially forced. "Okay."

"Look, I really gotta go. But I'll talk to you later." Before I had a chance to respond, he hung up.

Sighing, I shoved my phone into my pocket. As I did, my fingers grazed the packet of pills sitting in there. I hesitated only for a moment before pulling them out and taking not one, not two, but three. They were supposed to help keep me focused and centred, and if I ever needed to be those things, it was now.

DPOV

I walked into the barn, adjusting my clothes, only to come to a complete stop at the sight of Uriel standing in the middle of the open space, hands in his pockets, smug look on his face.

"Look at that. It's so cute when monkeys wear clothes."

Looking around, I noticed Sam, Liz, Ruby and Anna were nowhere to be seen. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

He shrugged. "It's the only way we could chat... since you're hiding like cowards."

"Don't normally see you off-leash. Where's your boss?"

"Castiel? Oh, he, uh... He's not here. See, he has this weakness. He likes you." The way he said it, it was as if that were a bad thing. "Time's up, boy. We want the girl."

"Wouldn't try that if I were you. See, she got her grace back," I lied. "Full-blown angel now."

"That would be a neat trick, considering," reaching into his top, he tugged a chain out. On the end of the silver chain sat a small tube filled with some kind of glowing stuff, "I have her grace right here. We can't let Hell get their hooks into her."

"Well, then why don't you just give her back her angel juice?"

"She committed a serious crime," he answered as if it were simple, slipping the necklace back into his shirt.

"What? Thinking for herself?"

"This is our business, not yours. She's not even human... not technically."

"Yeah, well, I guess I just like being a pain in the pooper."

"No." he grinned, moving towards me. "There's more." As he stopped in front of me, he laughed. "You cut yourself a slice of... angel food cake. Didn't you? Huh? You did."

"What do you care? You're junk-less down there, right? Like a Ken doll?"

"Ooh," he laughed again, moving back to his original spot. "Well, it's your last chance. Give us the girl, or-"

I cut him off, "Or what? What, you're gonna toss me back in the hole? You're bluffing."

"Try me. This is a whole lot bigger than the plans we got for you, Dean. You can be replaced."

I knew I was probably going to regret it. I knew I would hate myself for the rest of my life. But I already did, so it wouldn't make that much difference. As long as Anna and everyone else was okay, I didn't care what happened to me. Or, at least... I cared less for me than I did for them.

"What the hell?" I shrugged. "Go ahead and do it."

Moving forward again, he stopped in front of me once more, shaking his head. "You're just crazy enough to go, aren't you?"

"What can I say? I don't break easy."

"Oh, yes... you do. You just got to know where to apply the right pressure."

SPOV

"I don't know, man. Where's Ruby?" I was concerned. She had left last night, and now it was morning and she wasn't back...

"Hey, she's your Hell buddy," Dean mumbled before taking a drink from his flask.

I shook my head, walking over to Lizzie. "Did you see her? Last night, did you see Ruby?"

She shrugged. "I mean, yeah. I saw her, but-"

The barn doors suddenly burst open as Castiel and Uriel walked in. Dean, Lizzie, Anna and I all moved to the middle of the barn, standing together.

Coming to a stop a few feet away from us, Castiel set in gaze on Anna. "Hello, Anna. It's good to see you."

"How?" I shook my head at them. "How did you find us?" both pairs of eyes landed on my brother beside me. "Dean?"

Turning away from me, he looked to Anna. "I'm sorry."

I frowned at him. "Why?"

Without looking at me, eyes still focused on Dean's, Anna answered for him. "Because they gave him a choice. They either kill me... or kill you. I know how their minds work." Taking a quick breath, she leaned forward to kiss him goodbye. "You did the best you could. I forgive you." Standing strong, she turned to Castiel. "Okay. No more tricks. No more running. I'm ready."

"I'm sorry," Castiel told her.

"No. You're not. Not really. You don't know the feeling."

"Still, we have a history. It's just-"

She cut him off. "Orders are orders. I know. Just make it quick."

Before the angel could do anything, Alastair appeared behind us, with another demon and an injured Ruby. "Don't you touch a hair on that poor girl's head," he warned the angels.

Uriel sneered at the demons, walking towards them- Dean, Lizzie, Anna and I moved out of the way, knowing better than to stand between an angel and demon. "How dare you come in this room... you pussing sore."

"Name-calling." Alastair dropped Ruby to the ground before he stepped up to Uriel, just as disgusted. "That hurt my feelings... you sanctimonious, fanatical prick."

"Turn around and walk away now," Castiel ordered them.

"Sure. Just give us the girl. We'll make sure she gets punished good and proper."

"You know who we are and what we will do." Castiel stepped up to stand beside Uriel. "I won't say it again. Leave now... or we lay you to waste."

"Think I'll take my chances."

That's all it took before the angels and demons began to fight. Castiel dealt with Alastair while Uriel took on the other two. It didn't take too long before Uriel killed one of the demons- how I wasn't sure, but it had looked painful, like burning their insides.

Unfortunately, Castiel wasn't having as much luck. In fact, Alastair ended up getting the upper hand, pinning the angel to the ground as he started to chant something I'd never heard before.

"Potestas inferna, me confirma." His hand squeezed Castiel's throat. "Potestas inferna, me confirma. Potestas inferma, me confirma!"

Dean stepped forward then, using a crowbar he'd grabbed to knock Alastair away from Castiel. It was enough to get the demon to let go, but that's about it...

"Dean, Dean, Dean..." Alastair shook his head as he turned to Dean, Lizzie and I, the three of us blocking his path to Anna. "I am so disappointed. You had such promise." Lifting his hand, he didn't even touch Dean as he started to choke him, and then me.

I fell to my knees watching as his eyes moved to Lizzie, but nothing happened. She stayed standing, watching him, and after a moment his eyes went wide with wonder as he realised he could do nothing to her.

"Pick on someone your own size. Asshole." Lifting her hand, Lizzie sent Alastair flying across the room.

Both Dean and I looked to our friend, confused. Last time we saw her, she'd barely been strong enough to take on Samhain with my help, but now she could throw someone like Alastair around? That it begged the question... what the hell happened in the last month?

Before anyone could question her, a voice caught everyone's attention.

"No!" Uriel called out.

We all turned to see Anna throwing something on the ground. Whatever it was broke, setting some kind of white glowing fog-free for a moment before it flew towards Anna and into her mouth.

"Shut your eyes. Shut your eyes!" she yelled as she began to glow. "Shut your eyes!"

I looked away a moment before I heard her yell out, which was then followed by a loud explosion.

When everything calmed, I opened my eyes and turned to where she'd been standing. But she was no longer there. Neither was Alastair... Instead, all that was left of him was Ruby's knife.

Everyone stood looking around, some afraid- Castiel and Uriel- while the rest of us were just confused.

"Well, what are you guys waiting for?" Dean asked the angels. "Aren't you gonna go get Anna." He shrugged at them. "Unless, of course, you're scared."

"This isn't over." Uriel reached for Dean.

Lizzie stepped in front of my brother protectively, the same moment Castiel grabbed Uriel's shoulder to pull him back.

Dean kept his attention on Uriel, showing no fear what so ever. "Oh, it looks over to me, junk-less."

With nothing left to say, both angels disappeared. The moment they were gone, Ruby hobbled over to us. Limping and panting.

"You okay?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Not so much."

Stepping forward, Lizzie wrapped an arm around Ruby, helping to keep her up. "Don't worry, we'll get you fixed up." She smiled at the demon.

"What took you so long to get here?" Dean question, drawing both girls' eyes to him.

Ruby sighed, only a little annoyed. "Sorry I'm late with the demon delivery. I was only being tortured."

"I got to hand it to you, Sammy." Dean turned to smile at me, proud. "Bringing them all together all at once. Angels and demons. It was a damn good plan."

I shrugged. "Yeah, well, when you got Godzilla and Mothra on your ass, best to get out of their way and let them fight."

"Yeah, now you're just bragging."

"So, I guess she's some big-time angel now, huh?" I noted, thinking about Anna and where she might be. What she might be doing. "She must be happy... wherever she is."

Dean just gave a short shake of his head. "I doubt it."

EPOV

"Liz." I jumped at the sound of Dean's voice as he came up from behind me.

We were back at Bobby's, just the guys and me. We'd come back here so they could grab some supplies and then head off again. I was back here with the intention of staying. It's not like I didn't enjoy being with the brothers again, but I just wasn't sure if hunting with them full time was the best thing for me.

I'd been busy cleaning up the study when Dean had come in. Sam was upstairs, packing the rest of his things he'd left here last night. That meant Dean and I were alone.

"Dean." A nervous smile played on my lips. "What's up?"

"I want you to come with us."

"Wow." I chuckled lightly. "Straight to the point, then."

"Look," he sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets, "I know I freaked you out. I know you think I'm gonna hate you because of what you can do. But I won't. I know better now. What you do, it's not bad. I mean, it's not good," he pointed out. "But it's not bad."

"Are you telling me you can handle the fact I set things on fire and can exorcise demons with my mind?"

It was his turn to chuckle lightly. "No. I'm not telling you that. What I'm saying is... it may take a while, but maybe one day I will be able to handle it." He shrugged. "If it means you come hunt with us again, then I'll work on it."

Looking up at him, our eyes locked. I tried to search for any lies or uncertainties in his gaze. I trusted Dean, but I wasn't sure how much. I wasn't sure if I trusted him to simply watch my stuff. Or if I trusted him to watch my back. Things just weren't that simple anymore.

But there was one thing that hadn't changed. I loved hunting. It was my life. Ever since Tristan and I started dating, I hadn't been doing as much as I used to… as much as I wanted to.

So maybe going with the brothers... maybe it would be a good thing for me. I could keep my distance while hunting. It would distract me while Tristan was gone. It would keep me busy. I loved being busy...

"Okay." I nodded. "I'm in."

DPOV

Sam, Liz and I had left Bobby's a few hours ago. We were parked on the side of the road now, the three of us enjoying a beer each as we watched a storm pass up ahead. Sam and Liz sat on Baby's hood while I leaned against it.

"I can't believe we made it out of there," I noted, my mind on this morning's events.

"Again," Sam added.

I held out my beer to the two of them, the three of our drinks clinking together in cheers. Together, there didn't seem to be a lot we couldn't do. Whether it be dealing with normal monster crap, or big bad angels and demons. Speaking of which.

"I know you heard him."

"Who?" Sam asked.

Liz nodded. "What exactly did we hear, and from whom did we hear it?"

"Alastair," I answered. "What he said... about how I had promise."

Sam gave a short nod. "I heard him."

"You're not curious?"

"Dean, I'm damn curious. And I won't speak for her, but I'm pretty sure Lizzie is too."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but he's right. I am curious," she commented.

Going on, Sam said, "But you're not talking about Hell, and we're not pushing."

I nodded, looking away from them, thinking about it. The fact they weren't going to demand answers. They weren't going to press me for information. They were willing to live in the dark, just so I wouldn't have to go through it all again... knowing all of that, it made me want to tell them. So I did.

"It wasn't four months, you know."

"What?"

"It was four months up here, but down there... I don't know. Time's different," I explained. "It was more like forty years." I took a deep breath. "They, uh... they sliced and carved and tore at me in ways that you-" I stopped myself, shaking my head. "Until there was nothing left. And then, suddenly... I would be whole again. Like magic. Just so they could start in all over.

"And Alastair, at the end of every day... everyone... he would come over. And he would make me an offer. To take me off the rack, if I put souls on. If I started the torturing. And every day, I told him to stick it where the sun shines. For thirty years, I told him." My voice cracked as tears formed in my eyes. "But then I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't." Unable to help it, I began to cry. "And I got off that rack. God help me, I got right off it, and I started ripping them apart. I lost count of how many souls." A tear rolled down my cheek. "The- the things that I did to them."

"Dean..." Sam cleared his throat from behind me. "Dean, look, you held out for thirty years. That's longer than anyone would have."

"How I feel..." My voice shook as I looked at the ground, still crying, feeling all the pain and guilt. "This... inside me... I wish I couldn't feel anything. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing."

A set of arms wrapped around me then. Tight and comforting. Just holding me as I stood there crying. Liz didn't let me go until she was sure I wasn't going to fall to pieces right in front of them.

Bamby

#dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester x oc #sam winchester fanfiction #elizabeth rose hart #the hart #the hart iii: secrets

[trumpelecitononlinetshirts]

Trump Shirt Make America Incredible Again Tee Shirt

The 2020 US presidential political race is prepared for Tuesday, November 3, 2020. it'll be the 59th quadrennial presidential political decision. Voters will pick presidential voters who during along these lines on December 14, 2020, will either pick another president and VP or reappoint the occupants.

Around the beginning of November, President Trump announced he would travel Tuscaloosa, Ala., to head out to the school of Alabama-Louisiana State School football coordinate. At The Donald Trump 2020 T shirts & Hats reason when Representative Bradley Byrne, a three-term congressman and US Senate candidate from Flexible, instructed of this course of action, he immediately called an Alabama supporter named Jim Wilson, who could be encouraging Trump in his indulgence box on the precarious edge of midfield at Bryant-Denny Field. Wilson, as fortune would have it, might be a faraway cherished one , buddy and cash related supporter of Byrne's, and Byrne thought possibly he could get him into the compartment.

I asked him: 'Ol' cuz, ol' mate, ol' pal, Byrne says. Be that since it might, Wilson uncovered to Byrne that he himself moved toward only three tickets, which had a zone with him, his companion and his kin; the rest of directly compelled by his V.I.P. guest. So Byrne considered the White House to put forward our safeguard that we'd need to be inside the holder with the president, he says.

Byrne, who came to Washington with a reputation for being an Office of Business Republican, wasn't commonly so on edge to be connected with Trump. In 2016, after the appearance of the entryway Hollywood tape where Trump may be heard talking in foul terms about women and boasting about assault, Byrne called Trump's comments shameful and stunning and fought that Trump wasn't fit be pioneer of the US. Be that since it might, when Trump was picked, Byrne, as most Republicans, fell in line. Since beginning his Senate selection, he had thrown a polling form with the president around 98 percent of the time.

In October, Byrne introduced an objectives moving toward three House sheets to investigate Tracker Biden's expert collaborations in Ukraine. That proportionate month, he was one among around 30 House Republicans who barged in on the House Information Chamber's arraignment assessment by seething the leading body of trustees' secured work environments; usually unassuming, he evidently yelled even with Adam Schiff, the warning gathering's overseer. the resultant 24 hours, according to a Byrne campaign official, were his most noteworthy day of web based assembling promises as a Senate up-and-comer.

Byrne utilized Andy Surabian a past Trump campaign and White House aide who is by and by Donald Trump Jr's. top political guide as a specialist. His most recent fight notice ambushes Specialist Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, for corrupting 9/11 and Colin Kaepernick for slighting the standard. On the combat zone, he has said that Democrats don't believe in God. In his insufficient run agent in 2010, Byrne himself raised the temper of Christian conservatives when he said that he acknowledged there are bits of the Book of sacred texts that are proposed to be genuinely substantial and parts that are unquestionably not.

In a 20-minute campaign talk inside the North Alabama lake town Guntersville a month back, Byrne, wearing a gold-affixed blue jacket and enhanced dull hued loafers, used the words fight, contender and doing combating about numerous occasions as to his work for the upside of Trump. He said he contributed such huge amounts of vitality engaging on Authoritative lobby Incline that he was as often as possible constrained to skip lunch. Somebody expressed, 'Why you lost such huge amounts of weight?. he told the gathering. this is frequently in light of the fact that I don't locate a genuine pace!

In their encounters and conversations since Trump's political race at charge signings and White House events and presidential visits to Administrative focus Incline Byrne says that Trump has never raised the entryway Hollywood scene with him. There's a proof he's never conveyed it up with me, Byrne let me know. He basically couldn't mind less. He's inexorably fascinated by what we're doing now. At the reason once I asked Byrne what he'd state if Trump might do raise it, he addressed instantly: I tousled .

Since he was running for Senate, such regret included need. The Senate seat being referenced is starting at now required by Doug Jones, a Democrat who vanquished the past State Unique Court judge Roy Moore during a 2017 uncommon political race to displace Jeff, a great many sessionses wandered directly down to turn into Trump's first attorney general. Alabama is out and out Republican, and hence the state is normally seen in light of the fact that the absolute best the Republican Party must get a Senate seat in November. Possibly along these lines, since Byrne's passageway nine months sooner, the Republican fundamental had become a ponderously jam-pressed unlawful relationship. Click Here For More Details About Donald Trump 2020 T shirts.

[patriotsnet]

Who Is The Speaker Of The House For Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-is-the-speaker-of-the-house-for-republicans/

Who Is The Speaker Of The House For Republicans

Trump’s Save America Pac Released A Photo Showing The Former President Meeting With House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy On January 28 2021 Save America Pac Mccarthy Gets A Mixed Reception From Trumpworld

Trump continues to hold immense sway over conservatives, and House Republicans delivered an easy victory for Stefanik in becoming the party’s Conference Chair last week, despite her having a more moderate voting record than Cheney.

Loyalty to Trump, which Stefanik displayed in lending credence to the former president’s grievances regarding the 2020 presidential election, is a true tenet of being accepted in his orbit.

Only weeks after the January 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s impeachment by the House, McCarthy made a sojourn to the former president’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, even taking a smiling photo with him.

However, according to a report from Insider’s Tom LoBianco and Warren Rojas, some loyalists in Trumpworld view McCarthy with a heap of skepticism.

A Trump advisor recently told the former president that McCarthy likely wouldn’t lock up the requisite number of votes to obtain the speakership if the GOP regains the majority in 2022.

“He’s left too many people unhappy and unsettled and time is not on his side,” the advisor told Insider.

However, a veteran GOP strategist with close ties to Trump who spoke to Insider noted that McCarthy was a stellar fundraiser who backed the former president in a very public way in ousting Cheney from her leadership role.

“He’s not gotten crosswise with Trump,” the strategist said.

Democratic Congressman Leaves Open The Possibility Of Mccarthy And Trump Being Called Before Jan 6 Committee

From CNN’s Ryan Nobles

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, and a member of the Select Committee to investigate Jan. 6 said today that Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to pull the members he selected from the committee after Pelosi rejected two of them, will not prevent the committee from doing their work. 

Raskin said he and his fellow members are still focused on seeking the truth — and left open the possibility that both former President Trump and/or McCarthy could be called before the panel to testify.

 “Well, the investigation is following the events of January 6 and the causes of January 6 and all relevant evidence and all relevant witnesses should be part of the investigation,” Raskin said.

When pressed if that could include Trump and McCarthy, he said it will depend on where the investigation leads. 

“I don’t want to prejudge anything about where it’s going. If people were not involved in the attack or the insurrection or the plot to overthrow the electoral count process then they don’t have anything to worry about, but I mean, I would hope that any elected official who knows anything about what took place would step forward to tell us,” he said.

Rep Liz Cheney The Lone Republican On The Jan 6 Committee So Far Says She Agrees With Pelosi’s Decision

From CNN’s Maureen Chowdhury and Manu Raju

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was appointed to the Jan. 6 select committee by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the rhetoric around the investigation by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and by those GOP members who Pelosi rejected to put on the committee has been “disgraceful.”

“The American people deserve to know what happened. The people who did this must be held accountable,” Cheney, an outspoken critic of former President Trump, told reporters outside of the US Capitol.

“There must be an investigation that is nonpartisan, that is sober, that is serious, that gets to the facts wherever they may lead, and at at every opportunity, the minority leader has attempted to prevent the American people from understanding what happened. To block this investigation,” Cheney said.

Cheney said she agreed with Pelosi’s decision to reject two GOP members appointed to the committee by McCarthy, Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana, “I agree with what the Speaker has done.”

“The idea that anybody would be playing politics with an attack on the United States Capitol is despicable and is disgraceful,” Cheney continued.

Asked if McCarthy deserves to be Speaker of the House, Cheney told CNN’s Manu Raju:

“I think that any person who would be third in line to the presidency must demonstrate a commitment to the Constitution and a commitment to the rule of law — and Minority Leader McCarthy has not done that.”

Harris Says She Respects Pelosi’s Ability To Lead After Her Decision On The Jan 6 Select Committee

From CNN’s Jason Hoffman

Asked by reporters for her reaction to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to reject Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana from serving on the select committee that’s investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, Vice President Kamala Harris said “I absolutely respect Speaker Pelosi and her ability to lead, and support that.”

“…And there is no question in my mind, and I think most people’s mind, that the American people deserve to have a thorough, a full, fair and transparent process of getting down to what happened on Jan. 6. How it occurred, who was responsible, so that we can make sure that history does not repeat itself. That is in the best interest of all Americans,” Harris continued during a meeting with poll workers and election officials at the White House on Wednesday.

Harris also told those in attendance at the meeting that they are upholding some of the most important tenants of our democracy and asked them to share some of the challenges they have faced carrying out elections, specifically threats they faced surrounding the 2020 election.

Speaker Huston’s Statement On Gov Holcomb’s Latest Actions To Address Coronavirus Protect Hoosiers

“Hoosiers across this state are feeling the effects of this unprecedented health event, and Gov. Eric Holcomb is taking bold, decisive action to make sure Indiana is utilizing all available resources to help bridge the gap until the economy recovers. Cutting red tape for unemployed workers, delaying tax payments and penalties for Hoosiers and businesses, giving necessary guidance for schools, and providing flexibility to those who need social services programs are all important steps to providing relief and security.”

Mccarthy Says He Opposed The Bipartisan Jan 6 Commission Democrats’ First Choice Because Of Scope

From CNN’s Ryan Nobles and Annie Grayer

Asked by CNN why he opposed the failed bipartisan Capitol riot independent commission if he really wants to get to the bottom of what happened on Jan. 6, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said it’s because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the time played politics with the scope of that now moot commission.  

“That’s why people objected,” McCarthy said, referring to Democrats’ objections to including the attack on Good Friday that led to the death of fallen Officer William “Billy” Evans, among other reasons.

McCarthy also argued that Pelosi played politics and took too long to get the committee together, stating that Rep. Rodney Davis, who McCarthy had appointed to serve on the committee, requested an investigation as early as Jan. 13.

From the perspective of Democrats and Pelosi however, the Republicans were the ones who were trying to delay the bipartisan commission from being formed and getting underway.

Separately, House Intelligence Chair and Select Committee member Adam Schiff told reporters that Pelosi made the right decision to reject Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks from the select committee.

“The two of them were clearly selected just to be disruptive, and that’s not acceptable,” Schiff said.

Bipartisan House Probe Of Jan 6 Insurrection Falls Apart After Pelosi Blocks Two Gop Members

Plans for a bipartisan committee to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection fell apart Wednesday after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved to block two controversial Republicans appointed by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy from sitting on the panel — paving the way for two separate and largely partisan investigations of the violent attack on the Capitol.

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Pelosi called on McCarthy to name two new Republicans to the committee after refusing to appoint conservative Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks , a privilege she has as speaker. As staunch backers of former president Donald Trump, both members voted against his impeachment and pushed to overturn the election results certifying Joe Biden as president.

“With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these Members, I must reject the recommendations of Representatives Banks and Jordan to the Select Committee,” Pelosi said in a statement. “The unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision.”

McCarthy instead vowed to go his own way, pulling all five Republicans he had named off the committee and saying the GOP would launch its “own investigation of the facts,” without providing specifics on what such an inquiry would entail. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a sharp Trump critic chosen by Pelosi, is the only Republican remaining on the panel.

Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.

Republican Congressman Calls For Capitol Riot Commission That Does Not Include Politicians

From CNN’s Josiah Ryan

GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky said Congress should set up a non-political investigation into the Capitol riot of Jan. 6 which excludes elected officials.

“The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to have an independent commission that we know who’s going to be on it,” he said, speaking on CNN. “It doesn’t need to be political.”

It should include “not politicians,” said Comer. “Outside people… because any time you have political people, I don’t care if they’re Democrats or Republicans, it’s going to turn into a political event. It’s going to turn into a political entity.”

Comer also objected to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s decision to deny membership on the select committee to two outspoken Republicans, saying the GOP ought to have the right to choose their own members. He added that some Republicans view Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who is on the commission, with the same disdain Democrats hold for GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, who Pelosi rejected.

“Democrats traditionally pick their members, the Republicans traditionally pick their members. Obviously it’s going to be political when you do that,” he said referring to Pelosi’s decision.

Speaker Huston Supports Governor Holcombs New Recovery Team To Help Reopen States Economy

STATEHOUSE – “While the state is still battling this public health crisis, I applaud Governor Holcomb’s efforts to bring together this group of leaders to get Indiana’s economy moving again while ensuring the incoming federal stimulus dollars are used to help and support Hoosiers as we work to open up the economy soon. House Republicans look forward to working with the governor’s team and our Senate colleagues to get our state back to firing on all cylinders quickly.”

Huston Responds To Governor Holcomb’s Roadmap For Moving Forward In Fight Against Covid

STATEHOUSE – “We continue to see the number of cases and deaths drop, with the number of fully vaccinated Hoosiers nearing 1 million. These encouraging facts clear the way for Indiana to responsibly move forward. We are excited about the ending of the statewide mask mandate and capacity limits in early April. It’s clear that Indiana is following the data, and listening to the thousands of Hoosiers and businesses who are ready to get back to work or fully reopen.”

House Gop Fiscal Leaders Respond To Surge In State Revenues Governors Recommendations

“Indiana’s surge in revenue is proof that our low tax, pro-business environment and strong record of fiscal responsibility continues to pay dividends for Hoosier taxpayers. I strongly support the governor’s prudent recommendation to use this one-time money to pay cash for much-needed capital projects, which would otherwise require debt financing. This proposal could save over $100 million in interest payments over the next 20 years and free up those funds for important priorities like education and child protection. We look forward to working with Governor Holcomb in the coming months as we finalize plans for the 2020 session.”

Huston Responds To Gov Holcomb’s Actions Supporting Equity Inclusion And Opportunity

STATEHOUSE – “Governor Holcomb’s actions are thoughtful and important steps forward for Indiana. We will continue to have meaningful conversations with stakeholders, including the governor, legislators on both sides of the aisle and law enforcement, on how we can build on these efforts and further improve our criminal justice system.”  

Speaker Huston Responds To Governor’s Latest Update Continued Efforts To Fight Covid

STATEHOUSE – “Governor Holcomb has shown tremendous leadership during this complicated and overwhelming public health crisis, which continues to evolve daily. All levels of government and the private sector are coordinating efforts at an unprecedented level to slow the spread. I appreciate the level of transparency his administration continues to provide, and I encourage Hoosiers to stay informed and do their part to protect themselves and others so that we can all bounce back more quickly.”

Huston: Local Communities To Receive Over $25m In Road Funding Over Next Five Years

STATEHOUSE – “In the next five years, Hamilton County will receive more than $25 million in state funding to complete many road and bridge projects thanks to a long-term and responsible road funding plan passed this legislative session. Local projects include 33 miles of lane resurfacing and the rehabilitation or replacement of 20 bridges. This funding is part of a statewide infrastructure investment that will help ensure a bright future for Indiana and our local communities.”

Speaker Huston Supports Governor Holcomb’s Call For More Protections To Slow Covid

STATEHOUSE – “Rest assured, the governor and all state leaders are working together to engage necessary resources to protect our most vulnerable while understanding the tremendous urgency to get employees and businesses back to work as soon as possible. We all have to pull together now and do our part to protect our families, friends and communities, so that we can accelerate our state’s recovery.”

Former Speaker John Boehner’s Memoir Serves As A Reflection On Life In ‘crazytown’

You describe the way that you ran meetings when you were speaker of the House or really in any leadership position. You say that the key thing was to listen to other people and figure out what was on their minds and which way the room was going.

Well, I was in the sales and marketing business before I got into politics and learned a few things about sales. The most important thing about a salesman is not his ability or her ability to talk. It’s their ability to listen. Because if you’re listening to the person across the desk, you have a pretty good idea what it is they’re looking for and you can figure out a way to get there.

And no different in politics, because in politics — especially in the Congress — you’ve got this large body of people that you’re trying to move in a particular direction. You really can’t even begin to move them until you understand where they are and why they are where they are.

Your party captured the House in 2010. It was driven by the Tea Party movement. You make it clear that there are a lot of people in the Tea Party movement that you consider “crazies.” But at the time, you made sure there was no distance, no gap between mainstream Republicans and Tea Party types. You knew that was the way to power.

What do you think about some of the leading figures in your party, the way that it has gone in recent years?

Mccarthy Is Favorite To Get Speaker Role If Republicans Keep House But Not A Shoo

McCarthy: Speaker Pelosi ‘should scare all Americans’

Pelosi is confident she ‘will be speaker of the House’ if Democrats win in the midterms. On ‘America’s Newsroom,’ House Majority Leader McCarthy says the midterm elections are about ‘results vs. resistance.’

Who will be what in the House in the 116th Congress is as muddled as it’s been in decades.

We start today with a look at the GOP leadership contests and scenarios. We’ll evaluate the Democrats later in the week.

Here’s the process. The full House votes for speaker on January 3, 2019. The winning candidate must secure an outright majority of the entire House: at least 218 votes cast by the 435 members. The Democrats will formally nominate one candidate. The Republicans another. But it’s not unusual for members of both parties to cast ballots for someone besides the formal nominees. Plus, the House Speaker doesn’t have to be a member of the body.

The House Democratic Caucus and House Republican Conference will likely meet in late November or early December to select their candidates. Only members who prevailed in the midterm election and will be part of the 116th Congress will take part in this internal election.

Who assumes the speakership in addition to who emerges as the top leaders on both sides of the aisle hinges on which party is in charge – and by how many seats – in the new Congress.

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It may be a little warped, but losing the House could be the best outcome for McCarthy himself.

Speaker Huston Says Decision To Move Indiana’s Primary To June 2 Is ‘right Call’

STATEHOUSE – “In the face of an unprecedented public health emergency, Gov. Eric Holcomb and Secretary of State Connie Lawson, with the support of both political parties, are making the right call by pushing back our primary election to June 2. I also support the option of allowing all voters to use mail-in absentee ballots for the primary election to preserve citizens’ rights while protecting Hoosiers.”

Huston Releases 2020 Interim Study Committee Topics Including Impacts Of Covid

STATEHOUSE – House Speaker Todd Huston today released the 2020 interim study committee topics, which includes reviewing COVID-19’s impacts on Indiana and recommending best practices moving forward.

Huston, chair of the Legislative Council, convened the group’s annual meeting virtually for the first time to assign legislative study topics on Wednesday. He said the council passed a resolution, which requires each state agency to submit a report by Sept. 18 to the appropriate summer study committee outlining agency plans for handling similar public emergency situations in the future and recommendations for legislation.

Arizona Election Official Reacts To ‘check Your Six’ Threat From Republican

House Republicans balked at participating in the House committee that’s investigating the January 6 insurrection on Wednesday after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of the five Republicans House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had tapped for the panel.

LIVE UPDATES: The latest on the House Capitol riot committeeNancy Pelosi just doomed the already tiny chances of the 1/6 committee actually matteringThis story and headline have been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

CNN’s Manu Raju, Melanie Zanona, Ryan Nobles and Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.

Hamilton County Representatives Lace Up Sneakers To Raise Cancer Awareness

CAPTION:  Hamilton County legislators, State Reps. Tony Cook , Donna Schaibley , House Speaker Brian C.  Bosma , Todd Huston and Chuck Goodrich pair sneakers with their suits to draw attention to National Cancer Prevention Month Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019, at the Statehouse in Indianapolis. Each year, the Indiana House of Representatives participates in the Suits and Sneakers challenge, an annual event hosted by the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches. According to the Indiana State Department of Health, cancer is the second-leading cause of death for Hoosiers. Many cancers can be prevented or treated early by getting regular detection screenings.

Former Ohio House Speaker Says Hes Left Republican Party Over Donald Trump

Former Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, seen here in a 2016 file photo, says he’s left the Republican Party over Donald Trump and now identifies as a political independent. AP

Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Cliff Rosenberger, a former Ohio House speaker who abruptly resigned from office in 2018 amid an FBI investigation that hasn’t led to any charges, said Monday he’s left the Republican Party over his concerns with the GOP’s continued alignment with former President Donald Trump.

“I’m a conservative, and I’m going to be a conservative,” Rosenberger said in a Monday interview. “But if the Republican Party is going to continue, which it seems that they are, going down the path of supporting a guy like Donald Trump, I’m not going to have anything to do with that. So at this juncture, I’m going to consider myself an independent.”

Cleveland.com / The Plain Dealer contacted Rosenberger after a reader noticed that state voter records listed him as a Democrat. Public records show Rosenberger pulled a Democratic ballot in the May 2020 primary, and Rosenberger said he did so to vote for Joe Biden.

Rosenberger said he may have considered voting for a Republican challenger to Trump had there been a legitimate one. He said he ended up voting instead for Biden, whom he met while working as a White House intern in then-President George W. Bush’s administration.

A spokesman for the FBI field office in Cincinnati said Monday the investigation remains ongoing.

Speaker Huston Statement On Governor’s Roadmap To Reopen State’s Economy

STATEHOUSE – “I commend Governor Holcomb on his thoughtful and sensible approach to opening Indiana’s economy. Hoosiers are anxious to reopen their businesses and get back to work. This plan strikes an appropriate balance of protecting vulnerable Hoosiers while responsibly opening businesses throughout the state. Additionally, I am very pleased the governor laid out a long-term plan so Hoosiers know what to expect in the coming weeks and months.”

Huston Comments On Gov Holcomb Signing Indianas Balanced Budget Into Law

STATEHOUSE — “Today’s signing reflects our ongoing commitment to schools, workforce programs, veterans and the safety of Hoosier children. Our $34 billion balanced biennial budget is the culmination of many months of hard work. We funded the state’s priorities, protecting Indiana’s healthy reserves and valuable AAA credit rating without straining our finances or burdening future generations with debt.” 

List Of Speaker Of The United States House Of Representatives Elections

List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives

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Speaker of the United States House of Representatives elections are held when the House of Representatives first convenes after a general election for its two-year term, or when a speaker of the House dies, resigns or is removed from the position intra-term. The speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House, and is simultaneously the body’s presiding officer, the de facto leader of the body’s majority party, and the institution’s administrative head.

There have been 127 elections for speaker since the office was created in 1789. Traditionally, each party’s caucus or conference selects a candidate for speaker from among its senior leaders prior to the vote. Prior to 1839, the House elected its speaker by paper ballot, but since, on all but three occasions, has done so by roll call vote. A majority of votes cast is necessary to elect a speaker. By House precedents, votes of present are not to be included in the official vote total, only votes cast for a person by name are; even so, they have been counted on several occasions.

If no candidate receives a majority vote, then the roll call is repeated until a speaker is elected. In the longest speaker election in House history, 133 ballots were needed before representatives chose Nathaniel Banks as their presiding officer for the 34th Congress . Multiple roll calls have been necessary only 14 times since 1789, and not since 1923.

Mccarthy: The Only Way To Reverse This Is For Pelosi To Seat My 5 Picks

From CNN’s Adrienne Vogt

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the only way to reverse his decision to pull his 5 GOP members from the Jan. 6 committee is for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to include all of his picks into the committee.

“The only way to reverse this is seat these five. That’s the only way,” he said.

McCarthy pledged the GOP’s own probe “will answer all the questions” surrounding the Jan. 6 riot.

When asked how this move helps officers and the families affected by the Capitol riot, McCarthy said it is “politics by Pelosi.” 

“What helps them is we will go forward just as I promised them, and we’ll get the answer to those questions. We’ll make sure they’re protected,” he said.

Huston: State’s Unprecedented Economic Success Triggers Taxpayer Refund

STATEHOUSE – “Today’s fiscal year closeout results demonstrate that the fundamentally strong Hoosier economy has picked up where it left off after the initial shock of the pandemic and revenues continue to surge beyond our expectations. The automatic taxpayer refund ensures that reserves beyond what’s needed go back to where they belong – in the pockets of hardworking Hoosiers. Indiana’s already provided record funding for our K-12 schools and a fully funded infrastructure improvement plan on top of paying down debt, so this taxpayer refund is well-deserved. As I’ve said before, we’re going to jump at the chance to explore sustainable tax cuts and reforms next session. It’s critical for us to build on this record-breaking momentum and continue to do what’s right by taxpayers. We’re fortunate to be on such strong financial footing, and that’s in large part due to conservative Republican stewardship over the last 10 years.”

Huston Rolls Out Indiana House Republicans’ 2021 Legislative Priorities

STATEHOUSE – “We’re focused on continuing to navigate this pandemic and helping Indiana bounce back stronger than ever before. It’s critical we get more Hoosiers back to work, businesses open again and our economy firing on all cylinders. This session, our legislative priorities focus on helping small businesses and Hoosier workers, expanding rural broadband, improving public health, and supporting students and law enforcement. I look forward to working with our Senate colleagues and Governor Holcomb, and having a safe and productive legislative session.”

The Speaker Of The House: House Officer Party Leader And Representative

January 29, 2007 – May 16, 201797-780

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is widely viewed as symbolizing the power and authority of the House. The Speaker’s most prominent role is that of presiding officer of the House. In this capacity, the Speaker is empowered by House rules to administer proceedings on the House floor, including recognition of Members to speak on the floor or make motions and appointment of Members to conference committees. The Speaker also oversees much of the nonlegislative business of the House, such as general control over the Hall of the House and the House side of the Capitol and service as chair of the House Office Building Commission. The Speaker’s role as “elect of the elect� in the House also places him or her in a highly visible position with the public.

The Speaker also serves as not only titular leader of the House but also leader of the majority party conference. The Speaker is often responsible for airing and defending the majority party’s legislative agenda in the House.

The Speaker’s third distinct role is that of an elected Member of the House. Although elected as an officer of the House, the Speaker continues to be a Member as well. As such the Speaker enjoys the same rights, responsibilities, and privileges of all Representatives. However, the Speaker has traditionally refrained from debating or voting in most circumstances and does not sit on any standing committee of the House.

Speaker Huston Responds To Governor Easing Some Restrictions As Covid

STATEHOUSE – “Governor Holcomb is actively listening to constituents, business leaders and legislators in addition to health experts, and I’m encouraged by his decision to responsibly lift some restrictions on certain areas of the economy. Hoosiers have continued to do their part by staying home and practicing social distancing, and it’s working. I look forward to being part of ongoing conversations about further opening up our state in the days ahead.”

Speaker Huston Says State Local Budgets Face New Reality Due To Covid

STATEHOUSE – “The federal emergency relief package will help so many Americans and job creators weather this unprecedented storm. Expanding and increasing jobless benefits will have an immediate impact on those who have suddenly found themselves, perhaps for the first time, out of work and anxious about their future. I’m encouraged by the federal government’s aggressive and swift response, and I hope this relief is expedited directly to those who need it most.

“The federal legislation also provides direct financial assistance to the state and local governments to assist with the COVID-19 response, but this funding may not fill all of the gaps created by a dramatic decline in state and local tax revenues. Our fiscal prudence and strong reserves serve as a critical buffer to ensure the continuation of essential state government services, but it’s also clear that all levels of government must prepare now to tighten their belts.”  

Huston Statement On Former House Speaker Bosma’s Upcoming Retirement

STATEHOUSE – “Indiana’s history is filled with strong leaders who shaped lasting, meaningful policy to make our great state what it is today, and Speaker Bosma is among those Hoosiers. Whether it was protecting homeowners by constitutionally capping property taxes or ensuring all children have opportunities for a quality education, he’s been an integral part of so many game-changing reforms. We will certainly miss his experience at the Statehouse. I am thankful for our friendship, and I wish him and his wife, Cheryl, the very best moving forward.”

Bosma Huston Respond To Governor Holcombs State Of The State Address

“Governor Holcomb continues to provide strong leadership and vision for our state, and we look forward to working closely with him this session as we complete the people’s work on time and under budget. He is a tremendous ambassador of Indiana’s success story, and finds ways to get big wins for Hoosiers. We are excited about the record-setting pace of our economic development efforts, and we look forward to seeing the results play out in communities across our state,” said House Speaker Brian C. Bosma .“Our state continues to earn the spotlight with our fiscal stability and top-ranked economic environment, which attracts businesses large and small that support families across our state. With a structurally balanced budget and healthy reserves, we are on the right track to continue funding our state’s priorities and building on our momentum. Governor Holcomb has shown great leadership, and we will continue working together to support all Hoosiers,” said House Speaker-elect Todd Huston .

[rollingpens]

Donald Trump alludes to ramifications for China’s falsehood on COVID-19

Organizations over the globe have endured a shot, and endurance during this emergency is presently vital. Plans of action should be patched up to address the issues of the time, and organizations that prevail with regards to doing so are the ones that will endure.

US President Donald Trump has implied that there would be ramifications for China’s supposed deception to the worldwide network and the WHO on coronavirus, that started from its Wuhan city a year ago, and has guaranteed 119,666 lives with almost 2,000,000 diseases all inclusive.

Trump took shots back at a columnist on Monday during his White House question and answer session on coronavirus when over and again inquired as to why there are no ramifications for China.

“How would you realize that there are no results?” Trump inquired.

“I wouldn’t let you know. China will discover. For what reason would I let you know?” Trump answered when more than once inquired as to whether China was going to confront the outcomes of the supposed deception.

“You’re going to discover,” Trump said as individuals from the US Congress increase their talk and move against China.

Representative Steve Daines sent a letter to Trump encouraging him to end the US government’s dependence on clinical supplies and hardware from China and bring back medication fabricating occupations to America in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The COVID-19 pandemic has clarified how depending upon China for medication or basic clinical gear and segments is hindering to our national security and jeopardizes general wellbeing,” Daines composed.

“It is basically imperative to guarantee that enactment is completely executed as fast as could reasonably be expected and that the US keeps on being the world head in biomedicine, pharmaceutical turn of events, and clinical development,” he composed.

Four Republican legislators on Monday acquainted an enactment with diminish the dependence on China.

Shielding our Pharmaceutical Supply Chain from China Act gives organizations monetary motivating forces to fabricate pharmaceuticals and clinical gadgets in the US, makes it simpler to know which nation a medication originated from by making a rundown of the nation of beginning of all medications promoted in the United States, and forbids governmentally qualified wellbeing offices from buying pharmaceutical items from China, it said.

“Depending on the Chinese Communist Party whose lies about coronavirus made the pandemic we currently face for basic drugs is perilous and shallow. Likewise with 5G systems, with regards to clinical stockpile chains, national security must outweigh everything else. China is a foe that will utilize any US reliance as coercion to accomplish its evil objectives,” said Congressman Liz Cheney.

China ran a disinformation crusade to conceal the coronavirus emergency for a considerable length of time, putting the remainder of the world off guard in fighting the spread, affirmed Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

“We have become very subject to China, and it is time that we prepare our local pharmaceutical and clinical gadget makers to have the option to productively deliver these things here in the United States,” she said.

Congressman Mike Gallagher claimed that the Chinese Communist Party’s ridiculous dangers to retain life sparing medications from the US imperils general wellbeing and should open eyes to the hazardous over-dependence on China in clinical production network.

“This is a national security basic that to numerous Americans, involves life and demise. It’s past time for us to build up a forceful arrangement to move basic pharmaceutical stock chains from China,” he said.

Congressman James Comer alongside individuals from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform composed a letter to the Director-General of the World Health Organization mentioning records identifying with their help with the Chinese government’s coronavirus purposeful publicity endeavors.

The WHO gets critical money related help from American citizens, including as much as USD 513 million of every 2017.

The letter noticed that as of late as January, the WHO advanced Chinese purposeful publicity via web-based networking media in guaranteeing that the coronavirus doesn’t spread by human transmission.

The association similarly condemned travel limitations executed by President Trump, commended China’s endeavors to battle coronavirus even as the Communist system was imprisoning specialists, and bowed to Chinese impact by postponing marking COVID-19 a pandemic, the administrators said. More Article on Covid19

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Another gathering of Senators – Marco Rubio, Marsha Blackburn, John Cornyn, Kelly Loeffler, and Joni Ernst in a letter asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US Permanent Representative to the United Nations Kelly Craft to address the crackdown of free discourse in China and in nations across four landmasses including Turkey, Bangladesh, Niger, and Cambodia, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Chinese Communist Party is utilizing this general wellbeing crisis as a slight shroud to cover a crackdown on tranquil dispute and the right to speak freely of discourse,” the Senators composed.

“Unfortunately, China isn’t exceptional in its usage of the pandemic as a reason to organize observation measures or draft new laws that are a bit much, proportionate, straightforward, or time-bound,” they said.

“Hence, we approach the Department of State to archive demonstrations of provocation, capture, expanded observation, or different types of concealment or criminalisation by systems in reprisal for those countries’ residents communicating their opportunities through media, online networking, tranquil get together, or other quiet methods,” the Senators said.

All around, the coronavirus pandemic has executed 119,666 individuals and contaminated just about 2,000,000 individuals, with US being the most exceedingly awful influenced nation driving in the quantity of diseases and passings, as indicated by Johns Hopkins University information.

Read Latest US News updates, headline and breaking news from Trending News Today News, USA Today News Paper, Latest News, USA Today News about business, sports, cricket, lifestyle, weather and current affairs news only on Rollingpens.

#covid2019 #coronavirus #rollingpens #latest news #us #top news

[made-from-galaxies]

Beto ORourke slams Trumps behavior during El Paso visit

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke didn’t mince words Sunday when asked about President Trump’s recent visit to his community of El Paso, Texas.

“The people of El Paso told me that they didn’t want to see the president, and they didn’t want him to come here. They understand that he’s part of the problem,” O’Rourke told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

Trump traveled to El Paso last week after a gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart the previous weekend. Authorities said the shooter told them that he was targeting Mexicans, and a “manifesto” linked to him decried the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” In his CNN interview O’Rourke noted that Trump had also repeatedly warned of migrant “invasions” and falsely described El Paso as a hub of violent crime.

Tapper also played footage of Trump at the University Medical Center of El Paso, where the president touted the crowd size at a February rally in the city.

18 PHOTOS

Beto O’Rourke throughout his political career

See Gallery

UNITED STATES – NOVEMBER 13: Rep.-elect Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, speaks to reporters after a news conference with democratic members-elect in the Capitol Visitor Center. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

**ADVANCE FOR MONDAY, OCT 31** El Paso City Representatives Steve Ortega, left and Beto O’Rourke pose with a backdrop of Downtown El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005. The two and three other colleagues, all political newcomers under 35, were elected this year to the El Paso city council. The group of young up-and-comers say they took on their public roles to make El Paso the kind of city it should be, the kind it has long struggled to become. (AP Photo/El Paso Times, Victor Calzada)

US Rep. Beto O’Rourke (R), D-TX, speaks during a meeting with One Campaign volunteers including Jeseus Navarrete (L) on February 26, 2013 in O’Rouke’s office in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGANWith the United States days away from billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, anti-poverty campaigners fear that reductions in foreign aid could potentially lead to thousands of deaths. The world’s largest economy faces $85 billion in cuts virtually across the board starting on March 1, 2013 unless the White House and Congress reach a last-minute deal ahead of the self-imposed deadline known as the sequester. While the showdown has caused concern in numerous circles, activists are pushing hard to avoid a 5.3 percent cut in US development assistance which they fear could set back programs to feed the poor and prevent disease. ‘The sequester is an equal cut across the board, but equal cuts don’t have equal impact,’ said Tom Hart, US executive director of the One campaign, the anti-poverty group co-founded by U2 frontman Bono. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES – MAY 23: Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, rides his bike after a democratic congressional baseball practice in Northeast. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

UNITED STATES – MAY 23: Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, is pictured at a democratic congressional baseball practice in Northeast. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

US Rep. Beto O’Rourke , D-TX, meets with One campaign volunteers on February 26, 2013 in O’Rouke’s office in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. With the United States days away from billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, anti-poverty campaigners fear that reductions in foreign aid could potentially lead to thousands of deaths. The world’s largest economy faces $85 billion in cuts virtually across the board starting on March 1, 2013 unless the White House and Congress reach a last-minute deal ahead of the self-imposed deadline known as the sequester. While the showdown has caused concern in numerous circles, activists are pushing hard to avoid a 5.3 percent cut in US development assistance which they fear could set back programs to feed the poor and prevent disease. ‘The sequester is an equal cut across the board, but equal cuts don’t have equal impact,’ said Tom Hart, US executive director of the One campaign, the anti-poverty group co-founded by U2 frontman Bono. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES – JUNE 14: Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, walks down the House steps of the Capitol following the last votes of the week on Friday, June 14, 2013. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

U.S. citizen Edgar Falcon, second from right, and Maricruz Valtierra of Mexico, second from left, laugh while El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke, right, and Judge Bill Moody, left, congratulate them after the couple was married at U.S.-Mexico border, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013 in El Paso, Texas. Like many other couples made up of a US citizen and a foreigner, Falcon and Valtierra, who has been declared inadmissible after an immigration law violation, hope immigration reform will help them live together in the U.S. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, stands with his family for a ceremonial photo with Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, left, in the Rayburn Room of the Capitol after the new 113th Congress convened on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in Washington. The official oath of office for all members of the House was administered earlier in the House chamber. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas., surrounded by border region leaders, human rights experts, and residents, speaks to media on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013., during a news conference to explain what border communities are asking for in the context of immigration reform. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Congressman Beto O’Rourke, center, speaks at a new conference accompanied by Lillian D’Amico, left, mother of a deceased veteran, and Melinda Russel, a former Army chaplain, in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, June. 4, 2014. A survey of hundreds of West Texas veterans conducted by O’Rourke’s office has found that on average they wait more than two months to see a Veterans Affairs mental health professional and even longer to see a physician. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 29: U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, asks a question of former Army Capt. Debra Gipson during a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee hearing on ‘Defined Expectations: Evaluating VA’s Performance in the Service Member Transition Process’ in the Cannon House Office Building, May 29, 2014, in Washington, DC. Ms. Gipson suffered a severe back injury while en route to Afghanistan. (Photo by Rod Lamkey/Getty Images)

Democratic candidate for the US Senate Beto ORourke addresses his last public event in Austin before election night at the Pan American Neighborhood Park on November 4, 2018 in Austin, Texas. – One of the most expensive and closely watched Senate races is in Texas, where incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz is facing Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke, 46, whose given names are Robert Francis but who goes by Beto, is mounting a suprisingly strong challenge to the 47-year-old Cruz in the reliably Republican ‘Lone Star State.’ O’Rourke, a three-term congressman and former member of a punk band, is drawing enthusiastic support from many urban dwellers in Texas while Cruz does better in conservative rural areas.

Plucking the Senate seat from Cruz, who battled Donald Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, would be a major victory for the Democratic Party. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo credit should read SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/Getty Images)

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, of El Paso, Texas, speaks at the University of Texas at Dallas Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017, in Richardson, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, walks during a protest march in downtown Dallas, Sunday, April 9, 2017. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, left, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, right, take part in a debate for the Texas U.S. Senate, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in San Antonio. (Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)

Texas Congressman Beto ORourke gives his concession speech during the election night party at Southwest University Park in downtown El Paso on November 6, 2018. – After a close race for senate, ORourke conceded to incumbent Ted Cruz in his home town. (Photo by Paul Ratje / AFP) (Photo credit should read PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)

Former Democratic Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke gestures during a live interview with Oprah Winfrey on a Times Square stage at “Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations from Times Square,” Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019, in New York. O’Rourke dazzled Democrats in 2018 by nearly defeating Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the country’s largest red state. O’Rourke says he’ll announce whether he’ll run for president “before the end of the month.” (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

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“It’s an honor to be with you. Look at this group of people, can you believe this? I was here three months ago, we made a speech. And we had a — what was the name of the arena? That place was packed, right?” Trump said in the footage, which was aired by a local CBS affiliate. “That was some crowd,” he added. “We had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot.” Tapper asked for O’Rourke’s response.

“Not a single patient at University Medical Center or at Del Sol Hospital, two hospitals caring for survivors of that attack, wanted to see the president. That says it all if you ask me,” said O’Rourke, who represented El Paso in Congress before unsuccessfully running for the Senate in 2018.

“But for him then to focus on comparing political rallies or on himself, on how much people love him, just shows how sick this guy is and how unfit for this office [he is],” he continued. “He should be consoling people, bringing people together, focusing on their pain and improving their lives. Instead, he’s focused on himself.”

  This is viewer video of President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS at @umcelpaso meeting with victims and medical staff. Send us any photos/videos of president Trump’s visit to #ElPaso and we may show it on TV. Upload here: https://t.co/UHa4MdGOH4pic.twitter.com/DD5otJtYEg

— CBS4Local (@CBS4Local) August 8, 2019

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Source: https://opengeekhouse.com.br/2019/08/11/beto-orourke-slams-trumps-behavior-during-el-paso-visit/