File this one under “What the hell were they thinking?”

From The Hill: House GOP scraps plan to gut ethics watchdog after emergency meeting

“House Republicans abruptly withdrew a proposal to weaken an independent ethics watchdog on Tuesday, in a rocky start to the new Congress.”

“Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both opposed the changes, floated as part of a rules package for the new Congress, during the Monday night conference meeting. The changes were adopted without advance notice and on a federal holiday. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) authored the proposal to give the Ethics Committee jurisdiction over the OCE.”

“The House established the OCE in 2008 under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in response to a string of ethics scandals ensnaring GOP lawmakers.”

Yep, nothing says, “I favor accountability,” like putting the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) under the control of people the OCE might have to investigate.



Meanwhile, the Republicans in the Oklahoma House of Representatives have their own mess to clean up.

From the Tulsa World: Oklahoma speaker calls for investigation into settlement

“The speaker-elect of the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Thursday announced plans for an investigation into a payment to settle a complaint by a former legislative assistant. Republican Rep. Charles McCall of Atoka said the bipartisan House Rules Committee will begin investigating the $44,500 paid to the former assistant and her attorney, the allegations that led to the settlement and the House process for dealing with allegations of sexual harassment. The woman alleged she was fired after reporting sexual harassment by GOP Rep. Dan Kirby.”

Adding to the woe is the question of whether or not Dan Kirby’s is still legally a member of the Oklahoma legislature. In a letter to Speaker-Elect McCall, House Democrat Leader Scott Inman writes, “Representative Kirby’s resignation letter has not been produced publicly and the House Democratic Caucus believes that the document is a public record, that the citizens of the State of Oklahoma have a right to see the resignation document and that the production of a true and correct copy of the document is essential for the determination to be made as to Representative Kirby’s legal status to not only be seated on Organizational Day on January 3, 2017 but also as to Representative Kirby’s legal ability to cast a vote or votes on the important issues that may come before the Oklahoma House of Representatives on that date.”

NewsOn6.com reports, “On December 23, 2016, Kirby announced he would leave office at the end of 2016 after revelations that taxpayer dollars were used to settle a sexual harassment claim against him. But last week, Kirby changed his mind, saying his decision was made in haste and that he didn’t know about the settlement that was made on his behalf.”

Personal Note: In my previous post about Dan Kirby, I insinuated that he was guilty of sexual harassment, based on my belief that his decision to resign was an admission of guilt. That was a mistake on my part. Even a GOP politician is innocent of a charge until proven guilty. I don’t know if Kirby is guilty of wrongdoing, but I certainly am. I apologize for my mistake.</s>WASHINGTON, DC (NEWS10) — A newly-elected Congressman’s son is getting some online heat after House Speaker Paul Ryan caught him trying to sneak in a “dab” during his father’s official swearing-in photo.

Rep. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, posed with his family including his four children. One of the younger Marshalls decided to take full advantage of his front and center position by dabbing when the group squared up for the photo.

Dabbing is a popular dance trend and online meme resembling sneezing into your elbow.

To the teens mortification, Rep. Ryan saw the young man attempting the ‘dab’ and politely instructed him to knock it off.

“Do you want to put your hand down?” Ryan said. “You gonna sneeze? That it?”

Ryan tweeted later that while he had a great day of swearing in Congressmen, he still didn’t “get” dabbing.</s>Rep. Paul Ryan was reelected House speaker of the 115th Congress. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Paul Ryan easily wins reelection as speaker of the House

House Republicans overwhelmingly reelected Paul Ryan on Tuesday to another term as speaker of the House. Only one — Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — voted against him.

It’s the first full term for Ryan, who took the gavel from his predecessor John Boehner in late 2015. And the near-unanimous support of the Republican caucus is a symbolic milestone for a House GOP that has long been bitterly divided along ideological lines. But the election of Donald Trump, who at times has feuded with Ryan, undercut a band of hardline conservatives strategizing to replace him.

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Ryan will take control of a slightly smaller Republican caucus — Democrats netted six seats in the November elections — but one still firmly in control of the chamber, holding a 241- to 194-seat edge.

Massie, the lone anti-Ryan vote, cast his ballot for Florida Republican Daniel Webster.

On the other side of the aisle, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi saw four defections in her own caucus: Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) voted for fellow Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan, and Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wisc.) voted for Cooper. Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-New York) also voted for Tim Ryan, and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) voted for Rep. John Lewis.

Paul Ryan will begin his term helping the incoming Trump administration shepherd through its early priorities. He spent the day ahead of the speakership vote defusing a controversy over a late Monday decision by House Republicans to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics. Amid pressure from Ryan, Trump and a public backlash, House Republicans agreed to pull their proposal and consider it later in the year.</s>Paul Ryan halts ‘dab’ move attempt by congressman’s son during swearing in

The son lifted his elbow to make the signature trendy move but Paul Ryan stopped and took notice. It appeared as though Ryan was a little confused at the move, popularized by football star Cam Newton.</s>WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) -Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has been re-elected to serve as the speaker of the House of Representatives.

The 46-year-old Ryan will serve his first full term as speaker after succeeding John Boehner in October of 2015.

Ryan will lead the GOP charge to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance law and cut taxes and regulation.

“So I want to say to the American people: we hear you, we will do right by you and we will deliver,” Ryan said on the House floor.

Democrat Representative Nancy Pelosi of California was voted to be the minority speaker.</s>Republican Rep. Paul Ryan won re-election on Tuesday as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives when the lawmakers convened for the 115th session of the Congress.

Only one Republican member defected and voted for Rep. Daniel Webster.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Speaker was first elected on Oct. 29, 2015.

Ryan was re-elected by the House Republican caucus in November 2016 to serve a second term as Speaker of the House.

On the Democratic side, Nancy Pelosi was re-elected Minority Leader with only four of her colleagues voting for someone else for the top Democratic position.

Ryan is expected to address the 115th Congress.

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This post was syndicated from BusinessDay : News you can trust. Click here to read the full text on the original website.

Also, Like us on facebook</s>Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been re-elected to serve as speaker of the House of Representatives during the 115th Congress, gaining 239 votes.

Ryan, 46, will serve his first full term as speaker after succeeding John Boehner in October 2015. Tuesday's vote comes with little of the drama that accompanied Boehner's election two years ago when 25 House Republicans voted for someone other than Boehner.

Ryan will lead the GOP charge to repeal President Barack Obama's signature health insurance law and cut taxes and regulation.

Democrats nominated Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California for speaker. She received 189 votes and will serve as House minority leader. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio gained two votes, while Reps. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, John Lewis of Georgia and Daniel Webster each gained a vote.

</s>WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on Congress convening for a new session. (All times EST):

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been re-elected to serve as speaker of the House of Representatives during the 115th Congress, gaining 239 votes.

Ryan, 46, will serve his first full term as speaker after succeeding John Boehner in October 2015. Tuesday’s vote comes with little of the drama that accompanied Boehner’s election two years ago when 25 House Republicans voted for someone other than Boehner.

Ryan will lead the GOP charge to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance law and cut taxes and regulation.

Democrats nominated Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California for speaker. She received 189 votes and will serve as House minority leader. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio gained two votes, while Reps. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, John Lewis of Georgia and Daniel Webster each gained a vote.

Senate Republicans have already introduced legislation that’s a precursor to repealing much of the Affordable Care Act.

Successful passage of the measure would allow a detailed follow-up repeal bill to pass through Congress without fear of a filibuster by Senate Democrats. Tuesday’s measure doesn’t contain any policy language.

Repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law is the top priority of President-elect Donald Trump and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill.

The measure directs top congressional committees to cast votes to assemble the repeal legislation by Jan. 27. That means there’s no time for trying to add legislation to replace so-called Obamacare.

The measure is officially called a budget resolution. Senate debate begins this week and the House is likely to follow next week.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says confirmation hearings for Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, will begin next week. The hearings are expected to last two days.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee says the first session with Tillerson, the Exxon Mobile CEO, is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 11, with a follow-up hearing on the afternoon of Jan. 12.

Corker says he was meeting with Tillerson Tuesday afternoon. Corker says the committee will receive very soon a detailed financial disclosure statement from Tillerson, who worked at Exxon Mobil for 43 years.

The New Senate has been sworn in.

Seven new members of the Senate joined those who won re-election in receiving the oath of office from Vice President Joe Biden. Biden is the president of the Senate until Donald Trump becomes president Jan. 20. Then Mike Pence will take over.

Each senator was joined at the dais by current and former senators. They then took their new desks and chatted with fellow lawmakers.

There are two new Republican senators and five Democrats. The Republicans are Indiana Sen. Todd Young and Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy. The Democrats are Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, California Sen. Kamala Harris and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

Duckworth, a double-amputee Iraq war vet, walked to the dais and stood for the oath.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are among those attending the opening session of the 115th Congress.

Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, was sworn in Tuesday to Wyoming’s lone House seat, which her father also held before becoming defense secretary and later vice president.

Panetta’s son Jimmy Panetta captured a California seat once held by his father, who later became CIA director and defense secretary.

House Republicans have dropped plans to gut the independent ethics office after widespread criticism and questions from President-elect Donald Trump about GOP priorities.

In a reversal, the House GOP decided on Tuesday to strip the provision from a package of rule changes that lawmakers will vote on later in the day.

Said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma: “People didn’t want this story on opening day.”

House Republicans had voted Monday night to change the rules.

The 115th Congress has been gaveled into session. The House convened at noon Tuesday, with 241 Republicans and 194 Democrats. Among the members are 52 freshmen.

Lawmakers will soon vote on who will serve as House speaker with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., expected to win his first full term as speaker. They will then participate in a swearing-in ceremony.

The festive opening included dozens of children, dressed in their Sunday finest, sitting in the House chamber to watch the ceremony. Among the guests were former Vice President Dick Cheney, who is watching his daughter Liz, take the oath of office as the representative for Wyoming.

Republicans are focused on repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance law, rolling back regulations and cutting taxes. They’ll have an easier go of it in the House, with Democrats looking to the Senate to block legislation they view as unpalatable.

A coalition of government watchdogs and scholars is expressing concern about a vote by House Republicans to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics.

The groups, including Common Cause, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Judicial Watch, say in a letter to House leaders that the ethics office has strengthened congressional accountability since its creation in 2008.

The letter says the ethics office “has helped change a secretive and oft-perceived moribund ethics enforcement process” into one that is more accountable, active and bipartisan.

The letter comes after GOP House members voted behind closed doors Monday to give lawmakers themselves ultimate control over the ethics office, which was created after several bribery and corruption scandals sent lawmakers to prison.

Scholars including Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann also signed the letter.

President-elect Donald Trump is questioning the move by House Republicans to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics, arguing that tax reform and health care should be higher priorities.

In two tweets on Tuesday, Trump reacted to the closed-door vote of Republicans to put the independent OCE under the auspices of the lawmaker-run House Ethics Committee.

Trump’s first tweet said, “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it.”

He followed up with a second that said. “Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS”

The House is slated to vote on Tuesday on the rules changes.

Senior House Republicans say a vote is scheduled for Thursday on a measure that reaffirms U.S. support for Israel after the Obama administration refused to veto a United Nations resolution criticizing the Middle East ally on settlements.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that the administration “has lost all credibility when it comes to Israel.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said in a speech last month that the U.S. was standing up for a two-state solution when it abstained on the resolution, which declares the settlements on the West Bank and east Jerusalem a violation of international law.

McCarthy and Royce called the abstention a “stunt” that “hurt our ally Israel and made peace in the region even more difficult to achieve.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is pledging to hold President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to account – and warning against a “Twitter presidency.”

The New Yorker says Senate Democrats will hold Trump to his promise to “Make America Great Again” – as long as that means creating jobs, raising incomes, giving real opportunities to the disadvantaged and protecting civil rights.

But Schumer says, “We’ll fight him tooth and nail when he appeals to the baser instincts that diminish America and its greatness.”

The newly elevated Senate Democratic leader says the issues confronting America are so complex that “we cannot tweet them away.”

Schumer’s comments come in prepared remarks he is delivering later Tuesday as Congress convenes for its first session of 2017.

Members of the 115th Congress will be sworn in at noon Tuesday, setting off an aggressive campaign by Republicans who control the House and Senate to dismantle eight years of President Barack Obama’s Democratic policies.

The first and biggest target is Obama’s health care law, which Republicans have long sought to gut and blamed as a primary cause for a lackluster economic recovery. But decades-old programs that millions of Americans rely on every day, such as Social Security and Medicare, also will be in the crosshairs as congressional Republicans seek to shrink both the size of the federal budget and the bureaucracy in Washington.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, says that “we have a lot to do – and a lot to undo.”</s>Congressman's son 'grounded' for dabbing in front of confused Paul Ryan

WASHINGTON — A new Kansas Congressman is dishing out discipline after his 17-year-old son pulled a dance move resembling a sneeze during a photo shoot with House Speaker Paul Ryan after the U.S. House of Representatives swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol.

During the photo shoot Tuesday, Cal Marshall held the Bible with his father and Ryan. As the photographer prepared to take photos, the son raised one arm in the move popularized by sports celebrities known as dabbing, hiding his face as if he was about to sneeze.

Ryan asked if he was OK. As the teen began laughing, Marshall said, "He's sneezing."

Ryan later tweeted about the moment, saying he still didn't get it.

Marshall, an obstetrician, won the 1st District seat after beating incumbent tea party favorite Tim Huelskamp in the Republican primary.</s>Republican Rep. Paul Ryan was on Tuesday sworn-in as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives after winning his re-election when the lawmakers convened for the 115th session of the Congress. The Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who monitored the election on network, reports that only one Republican member defected and voted…

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The House GOP caucus overwhelmingly re-elects Paul Ryan to another term as House Speaker.