The Penguin quits! A Republican Try Gowdy to Retire

The Penguin quits!

Trey Gowdy a Tea Party political hack Benghazi freak is resigning.

Guess he finally got to read all the evidence of the Chumph-Russia collusion. This is two in a row quickly resigning from the House Oversight Committee.

Rep. Trey Gowdy abruptly announces retirement from Congress

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) announced his retirement from Congress shortly after some of his Republican colleagues were in a train wreck involving a garbage truck.

The South Carolina Republican abruptly announced Wednesday he will not seek re-election in November but will instead return to the justice system.

“Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system,” Gowdy said. “As I look back on my career, it is the jobs that both seek and reward fairness that are most rewarding.”

The 53-year-old Gowdy, a former district attorney and federal prosector, has represented South Carolina’s 4th congressional district since 2011, when he was elected as part of the Tea Party wave.

Gowdy chaired the United States House Select Committee on Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi from 2014 to 2016, and he called for the prosecution of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.

He has chaired the House Oversight Committee since the abrupt resignation of former GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).

 

Republican Off the Reservation! Grassley Slams Trump/Sessions

Oh Yeah!

This joint is on fire. Senator Grassley of Iowa hammers the Chumph cabal for denying information requests by Democrats.

It is a violation of The Separation of Powers clause in the Constitution, and in itself may be an Impeachable Act.

GOP Senator Slams DOJ Legal Opinion As ‘Nonsense’ That ‘Floods The Swamp’

Charles Grassley’s letter is another sign of Republicans’ growing frustration with Trump.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) blasted President Donald Trump’s White House legal team this week for attempting to limit Congress’ ability to obtain information from the Executive Branch of government.

“This is nonsense,” Grassley said in a 7-page letter dated June 7 that accuses the White House’s legal handlers of violating the separation of powers and attempting an end run around the checks and balances that allow the co-equal branches of the U.S. government to function.

The letter is a scathing denunciation of a May 1 opinion issued by the White House’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that would allow the president, vice president and their respective staffers to ignore any requests for information that do not come directly from the chairmen of Congressional committees.

The opinion was authored by Acting Assistant Attorney General Curtis E. Gannon and Grassley said it “completely misses the mark.”

“It erroneously rejects any notion that individual members of Congress who may not chair a relevant committee need to obtain information from the Executive Branch in order to carry out their Constitutional duties,” Grassley said. “It falsely asserts that only requests from committees or their chairs are ‘constitutionally authorized,’ and relegates requests from non-Chairmen to the position of ‘non-oversight’ inquiries — whatever that means.”

The senator continued, “For OLC to so fundamentally misunderstand and misstate such a simple fact exposes its shocking lack of professionalism and objectivity. Indeed, OLC appears to have utterly failed to live up to its own standards. You are being ill-served and ill advised.”

All members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate should have the power to make requests and to obtain whatever information they need from the Executive Branch, Grassley said, in order to maintain accountability.

“The powers vested in the Congress — both explicitly and inherently by the Constitution —
impose significant and far-reaching responsibilities on the people’s elected representatives,” he said. “They include the authorization and appropriation of federal funds, the organization of federal departments, the enactment of laws executing the enumerated powers, the confirmation of nominees, the impeachment and removal of officers, and the investigation of the execution of the laws and of waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs. These responsibilities are all forms of oversight, all mechanisms that support the legislative check and balance of the executive power. All members participate in deciding whether, when, and how Congress will exercise these authorities.”

By selectively deciding who it will and will not respond to, Grassley said, the Executive Branch is striking a blow against transparency, discouraging bipartisanship and hurting the American people’s representatives’ ability to do their job. Furthermore, he said, information requests are not just subpoenas and hostile inquiries. They are how Congress gets the materials it needs to make decisions about budgets and other matters.

He concluded by asking that the OLC rescind its May 1 request “and any policy of ignoring oversight request from non-Chairmen. It harms not just the Members who happen to be in the minority party at the moment, but also, Members in the majority party who are not currently Chairmen. It obstructs what ought to be the natural flow of information between agencies and the committees, which frustrates the Constitutional function of legislating.”

 

Staff Begins Deserting the Sinking SS Trump Scow

What Color is Your Parachute?

The worst job in Washington right now: Working for Trump

As Donald Trump has grown increasingly angry and frustrated with his White House staff, the beleaguered targets of his ire have a quietly roiling gripe of their own — their boss, the president himself.

Since he fired FBI Director James B. Comey, Trump has lurched through crises of his own making — from the explosive report Monday that he had revealed highly classified intelligence to Russian officials to the bombshell Tuesday thathe had urged Comey to end the federal investigation into Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser.

In his wake remain his exhausted aides and deputies, the frequent targets of Trump’s wrath as they struggle to control an uncontrollable chief executive and labor to explain away his stumbles.

Wednesday evening brought yet another challenging development for the White House, as the Justice Department announced a special counsel to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

Some White House staffers have turned to impeachment gallows humor. Other mid-level aides have started contacting consultants, shopping their résumés. And at least one senior staffer has begun privately talking to friends about what a post-White House job would look like, according to two people close the staffer…

 

Radioactive Drugbo

Rush Limbaugh has certainly lit the fuse on a bigger keg of dynamite than even he could have envisioned with his comments about Sandra Fluke and the Georgetown women.

Anyone has a question about who has the power in this country just needs to check out Drugbo’s example. It took COlor of Change over a year to make a definitive dent in Glenn Beck’s Faux News racism…

Looks like it is only going to take the ladies about a month to take Drugbo down.

Yeah – Cut off his supply of Viagra!

Rush Limbaugh loses 39 advertisers

At least 39 companies have pulled their ads from the “The Rush Limbaugh Show” since the conservative talk show host called a law student a “slut” on the air last week, as the social media blitz against the popular radio program showed no signs of slowing down Wednesday.

Companies are continuing to join the rapidly growing list of businesses that have ceased advertising on Limbaugh’s show, responding to the flood of grievances that are pouring in from disgruntled customers.

The list of companies that officially announced on Twitter, Facebook or in statements to other media outlets that they would stop advertising on the radio show include: AccuQuote Life Insurance, Allstate Insurance, AOL, Bare Escentuals, Bethesda Sedation Dentistry, Bonobos, Capital One, Carbonite, Cascades Dental, Citrix, Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, Constant Contact, Cunningham Security, Freedom Debt Relief, Girl Scouts, Goodwill Industries, Hadeed Carpet, JCPenney, Legal Zoom, Matrix Direct, Netflix, Norway Savings Bank, Philadelphia Orchestra, PolyCom, Portland Ovations, ProFlowers, Quicken Loans, Regal Assets, Reputation Rhino, RSVP Discount Beverage, Sears, Sensa, Service Magic, Sleep Train, Sleep Number, St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Tax Resolution, Thompson Creek Windows and Vitacost.