Tag: House Speaker

Commentary: The Speaker We Need

Michigan Star Staff

It might have been embarrassing, and it might have given the enemies in the political class ample opportunities to snicker and hurl insults. But at the end of the day, the result reached when Mike Johnson won a 220–209 vote over wannabe Def Poetry Jam participant Hakeem Jeffries was the best one America could have asked for.

We have, after three weeks of infighting and paralysis, a Speaker of the House — and what we have, by all indications, is something of which we can be very proud.

Read More

Commentary: The Matt Gaetz Fight

Michigan Star Staff

Matt Gaetz did with seven other votes what Kevin McCarthy could not do with more than half of the House chamber. He imposed his will.

The general commanding a majority of the troops on the field capitulated to Democrats to keep the federal leviathan, nay, the federal Cthulhu swinging its tentacles and snapping its claws. The general with fewer troops behind him imposed the change he desired, meaning he deposed the speaker he characterized as a liar.

Read More

Andy Biggs Commentary: I’m Running to Replace Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker and Break the Establishment

Michigan Star Staff

It is time. It is time for new leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives.

People are thrilled that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reign of Leftist extremism is ending. The question is whether we will be treated to the status quo that will move us along the same path, though perhaps more slowly.

Read More

Andy Biggs Commentary: I Cannot Vote for Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker

Michigan Star Staff

During this midterm campaign, I attended hundreds of events in my district, around Arizona, and around the country. The issue I was asked about most often was whether I or the Republicans in the House, or the Republicans in the Senate, would keep the same leaders.

Not only did my constituents want the “red wave” that didn’t materialize, they also wanted new leadership.

Read More

Commentary: The GOP Can Reclaim the Child Tax Credit – And Use it to Win in 2022

RealClearWire
family of three eating pizza

As part of his Contract with America, House Speaker (and my former boss) Newt Gingrich helped first introduce the Child Tax Credit (CTC), passing it in 1997. Originally the idea of President Ronald Reagan, the CTC was founded on the conservative principles that raising children is God’s work, and parents should not be punished or held back for choosing family in a country that is always moving forward. President Trump continued this tradition by doubling the CTC in 2017. As Speaker Gingrich said during a 1995 speech, “We believe that parents ought to have the first claim on money to take care of their children rather than bureaucrats.”

Democrats reformed the CTC in 2021, as part of their wildly overdone American Rescue Plan. They’ve sought to continue their changes to the CTC in the even-more-overdone Build Back Better Act (BBB), a hulking Frankenstein of bad Democratic ideas. But the new version of the CTC may be an exception. It continues fulfilling Speaker Gingrich’s contract, empowering families to work and earn, and to raise their children with their own values. The spirit and core of that policy is even better reflected by flat, poverty-busting monthly disbursement of the credit. It’s the only salvageable ship in the sinking BBB fleet.

The CTC – in its 2021 form – does not stray too far from the $500-per-child tax cut that was initially passed in 1997. The payments, which provided eligible families with up to $300 per month for each qualifying child under age 6 and up to $250 per month for each qualifying child aged 6 to 17, stimulated regional economies, protected families from rising costs, provided direct cash relief, and removed bureaucratic hurdles.

Read More

Pelosi Plans to Run Again, Stay on as Democratic Leader, Despite Earlier Promise, Report

Michigan Star Staff

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly will continue on in her capacity as the chamber’s top Democrat after she turns 82 this year.

Pelosi will file and run for reelection in her northern California district next year (her 18th term) and is considering whether to stay in leadership, despite an initial promise to give up her role as top House Democrat, CNN reported over the weekend.

Pelosi will primarily spend the next year raising money for Democrats as they attempt to hold onto their narrow majority in the lower chamber.

Read More

Commentary: The Liz Cheney Meltdown, and What It Means

Michigan Star Staff
Liz Cheney

Bye, Liz.

The abject implosion of a politician once thought to possess national prospects — though not due to her talent but rather her name and connections — might have been overshadowed by the alarming performance just a few hours later by our near-invalid president. But Liz Cheney’s bizarre performance on the U.S. Capitol steps Wednesday was nonetheless notable.

If you haven’t followed the lead-up to Wednesday’s meltdown, it involved the sham 9/11 Commission–style inquiry being built to examine the Capitol riot of Jan. 6. That inquiry, to be chaired by partisan hack Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson on behalf of Nancy Pelosi, is obviously not built to fully examine what happened that day; it’s built to assign blame to the Republican Party for what Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat Party is determined to present as a casus belli against half of the American people.

Pelosi’s Jan. 6 commission is a big deal, because she has turned the Capitol into an armed camp behind razor wire for most of the past six months and change over the dubious assertion that the protesters who descended on the building and briefly disrupted the vote to certify a presidential election that still reeks of irregularity and worse presented an “insurrection” and a “grave threat to democracy” to trump (pun not intended, but whatever) anything else since the Civil War.

Read More

Apple CEO Tim Cook Reportedly Phoned Pelosi to Warn Her Against Antitrust Bills

Michigan Star Staff
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Apple CEO Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress last week, warning lawmakers that newly proposed antitrust legislation would harm consumers and hurt innovation, five sources with knowledge of the conversations told The New York Times.

Lawmakers introduced a series of antitrust bills that target Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon, The New York Times reports. The legislative efforts seek to rein in the tech companies by addressing alleged anti-competitive practices and by curbing monopoly power, according to a report by CNET.  

Pelosi pushed back on Cook’s warnings, asking him to name specific policy objections, two sources with knowledge of the conversations told The New York Times.

Read More

Rep. Carter Promises House Chairs to Retain Them and Not Retaliate if Elected Speaker

Jason M. Reynolds

  State Rep. Mike Carter (R-TN-29) of Ooltewah reportedly wrote to all House chairmen and vice chairmen in his bid to become the next Speaker, multiple media outlets report. Carter promises fair treatment to all members without retribution, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. A meeting of the Tennessee…

Read More